The Brassbounder Part 20

"Where d'ye mark that, now?" he cried, as again the liner's siren sounded out.

"Where d'ye mark ... d'ye mark ... mark?" The word was pa.s.sed forward from mouth to mouth, in voices faint and m.u.f.fled.

"About four points on th' port bow, Sir!" The cry sounded far and distant, like a hail from a pa.s.sing ship, though the Mate was but shouting from the bows.

"Aye, aye! Stan' by t' hand that foresheet! Keep the foghorn goin'!"

"... Foresheet ... 'sheet ... th' fog'orn ... goin'!" The invisible choir on the main-deck repeated the orders.

Again the deep bellow from the steamer, now perilously close--the futile rasp of our horn in answer.

Suddenly an alarmed cry: "O Chris'! She's into us! ... The bell, you! The bell! ..." A loud clanging of the forward bell, a united shout from our crew, patter of feet as they run aft, the Mate shouting: "Down h.e.l.lum, Sir--down h.e.l.lum, f'r G.o.d's sake!"

"Hard down helm! Le' go foresheet!" answered to the Mate's cry, the Old Man himself wrenching desperately at the spokes of the wheel.

Sharp ring of a metal sheave, hiss of a running rope, clank and throb of engines, thrashing of sails coming hard to the mast, shouts!

Out of the mist a huge shadowy hull ranges alongside, the wash from her sheering cut.w.a.ter hissing and spluttering on our broadside.

Three quick, furious blasts of a siren, unintelligible shouts from the steamer's bridge, a churning of propellers; foam; a waft of black smoke--then silence, the white, clammy veil again about us, and only the m.u.f.fled throb of the liner's reversed engines and the uneasy lurch of our barque, now all aback, to tell of a tragedy averted.

"Oh! The murderin' ruffians! The b----y sojers!" The crisis over, the Old Man was beside himself with rage and indignation. "Full speed through weather like this! Blast ye!" he yelled, hollowing his hands.

"What--ship--is--that?"

No answer came out of the fog. The throb of engines died away in a steady rhythm; they would be on their course again, 'slowed down,'

perhaps, to twelve knots, now that the nerves of the officer of the watch had been shaken.

Slowly our barque was turned on heel, the yards trimmed to her former course, and we moved on, piercing the clammy barrier that lay between us and a landfall.

"Well, young fellers? Wha' d'ye think o' that now?" Bo'sun was the first of us to regain composure. "Goin' dead slow, worn't 'e? 'Bout fifteen, I sh'd siy! That's the wye wi' them mail-boat fellers: Monday, five 'undred mile; Toosd'y, four-ninety-nine; We'n'sd'y, four-ninety-height 'n 'arf--'slowed on haccount o' fog'--that's wot they puts it in 'er bloomin' log, blarst 'em!"

"Silence, there--main-deck!" The Old Man was pacing across the break of the p.o.o.p, pausing to listen for sound of moving craft.

Bo'sun Hicks, though silenced, had yet a further lesson for us youngsters, who might one day be handling twenty-knot liners in such a fog. In the ghostly light of fog and breaking day he performed an uncanny pantomime, presenting a liner's officer, resplendent in collar and cuff, strutting, mincing, on a steamer's bridge. (Sailormen walk fore and aft; steamboat men, athwart.)

"Haw!" he seemed to say, though never a word pa.s.sed his lips. "Haw!

Them wind-jammers--ain't got no proper fog'orns. Couldn't 'ear 'em at th' back o' a moskiter-net! An' if we cawn't 'ear 'em, 'ow do we know they're there, haw! So we b.u.mps 'em, an' serve 'em dem well right, haw!"

It was extraordinary! Here was a man who, a few minutes before, might, with all of us, have been struggling for his life!

Dawn broke and lightened the mist about us, but the pall hung thick as ever over the water. At times we could hear the distant note of a steamer's whistle; once we marked a sailing vessel, by sound of her horn, as she worked slowly across our bows, giving the three mournful wails of a running ship. Now and again we cast the lead, and it was something to see the Channel bottom--grains of sand, broken sh.e.l.l-pebbles--brought up on the arming. Fog or no fog, we were, at least, dunting the 'blue pigeon' on English ground, and we felt, as day wore on and the fog thinned and turned to mist and rain, that a landfall was not yet beyond hope.

A change of weather was coming, a change that neither the Old Man nor the Mate liked, to judge by their frequent visits to the barometers.

At noon the wind hauled into the sou'-west and freshened, white tops curled out of the mist and broke in a splutter of foam under the quarter, Channel gulls came screaming and circling high o'er our heads--a sure sign of windy weather. A gale was in the making; a rushing westerly gale, to clear the Channel and blow the fog-rack inland.

"I don't like the looks o' this, Mister." The Old Man was growing anxious; we had seen nothing, had heard nothing to make us confident of our reckoning. "That aneroid's dropped a tenth since I tapped it last, an' th' mercurial's like it had no bottom! There's wind behind this, sure; and if we see naught before 'four bells,' I'm goin' out t' look for sea-room. Channel fogs, an' sou'-westers, an' fifteen-knot liners in charge o' b----y lunatics! Gad! there's no room in th' English Channel now for square sail, an' when ye----"

"Sail O! On the port bow, Sir!" Keen, homeward-bound eyes had sighted a smudge on the near horizon.

"Looks like a fisherman," said the Mate, s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g at his gla.s.ses.

"He's standing out."

"Well, we'll haul up t' him, anyway," answered the Old Man. "Starboard a point--mebbe he can give us the bearin' o' th' Lizard."

Bearing up, we were soon within hailing distance. She was a Cardiff pilot cutter; C.F. and a number, painted black on her mains'l, showed us that. As we drew on she hoisted the red and white of a pilot on station.

"The barque--ahoy! Where--are--'oo--bound?" A cheering hail that brought all hands to the rails, to stare with interest at the oilskin-clad figures of the pilot's crew.

"Falmouth--for orders!"

"Ah!"--a disappointed note--"'oo are standin' too far t' th' west'ard, Capt'in. I saw the Falmouth cutter under th' land, indeed, before the fog came down. Nor'-by-east--that'll fetch 'm!"

"Thank 'ee! How does the Lizard bear?"

"'Bout nor'-nor'-west, nine mile, I sh'd say. Stand in--as--far--as--thirty-five--fathoms--no less!" The pilot's Channel voice carried far.

"Thank Heaven! That's definite, anyway," said the Old Man, turning to wave a hand towards the cutter, now fast merging into the mist astern.

"Nor'-nor'-west, nine mile," he said. "That last sight of ours was a long way out. A good job I held by th' lead. Keep 'er as she's goin', Mister; I'll away down an' lay her off on th' chart--nor'-nor'-west, nine mile," he kept repeating as he went below, fearing a momentary forgetfulness.

In streaks and patches the mist was clearing before the westering wind.

To seaward we saw our neighbours of the fog setting on their ways. Few were standing out to sea, and that, and the sight of a fleet of fishermen running in to their ports, showed that no ordinary weather lay behind the fast-driving fog-wreaths. North of us heavy ma.s.ses of vapour, banked by the breeze, showed where the land lay, but no land-mark, no feature of coast or headland, stood clear of the mist to guide us. Cautiously, bringing up to cast the lead at frequent intervals, we stood insh.o.r.e, and darkness, falling early, found us a-lee of the land with the misty glare of the Lizard lights broad on our beam. Here we 'hove-to' to await a pilot--"Thirty-five fathoms, no less," the Welshman had advised--and the frequent glare of our blue-light signals showed the Old Man's impatience to be on his way again to Falmouth and shelter.

Eight we burnt, guttering to their sockets, before we saw an answering flare, and held away to meet the pilot. A league or so steady running, and then--to the wind again, the lights of a big cutter rising and falling in the sea-way, close a-lee.

"What--ship?" Not Stentor himself could have bettered the speaker's hail.

"The _Florence_, of Glasgow: 'Frisco t' Channel. Have ye got my orders?"

A moment of suspense. Hull, it might be, or the Continent: the answer might set us off to sea again.

"No--not now! (We're right--for Falmouth.) We had 'm a fortnight agone, but they'm called in since. A long pa.s.sage, surely, Captain?"

"Aye! A hundred an' thirty-two days--not countin' three week at th'

Falklan's, under repair. ... Collision with ice in fifty-five, south!

... No proper trades either; an' 'doldrums'! ... A long pa.s.sage, Pilot!"

"Well, well! You'm be goin' on t' Falmouth, I reckon--stan' by t' put a line in my boat!" A dinghy put off from the cutter; a frail c.o.c.kle-sh.e.l.l, lurching and diving in the short Channel sea, and soon our pilot was astride the rail, greeting us, as one sure of a welcome.

"You'm jest in time, Capten. It's goin' t' blow, I tell 'ee--(Mainyard forrard, Mister Mate!)--an' a West-countryman's allowance, for sure!"

He rubbed his sea-scarred hands together, beamed jovially, as though a 'West-countryman's allowance' were pleasant fare.... "Th' gla.s.s started fallin' here about two--(Well--the mainyard!--a bit more o' th'

lower tawps'l-brace, Mister!)--two o'clock yesterday afternoon--(How's the compa.s.s, Capten? Half a point! Keep 'er nor'-east b' nor', when she comes to it, m' lad!)--an' it's been droppin' steady ever since.

Lot o' craft put in for shelter sin'--(Check in th' foreyards now, will 'ee?)--since th' marnin', an' the Carrick Roads 'll be like West India Dock on a wet Friday. A good job the fog's lifted. Gad! we had it thick this marnin'. We boarded a barque off th' Dodman.... Thought he was south o' th' Lizard, he did, an' was steerin' nor'-east t' make Falmouth! A good job we sighted 'im, or he'd a bin--(Well--th'

foreyard, Mister!)--hard upon th' Bizzie's Shoal, I reckon."

The look-out reported a light ahead.

"'St. Ant'ny's, Capten," said our pilot. "Will 'ee give 'er th' main to'galns'l, an' we'll be gettin' on?"