The Ghost Ship Part 6

"Luff up, quartermaster!" roared the skipper to the top of his voice and dancing up and down the bridge in his excitement. "Luff, you beggar, luff!"

"I can't, sir," yelled the man in desperation--a fresh hand who had come on duty to relieve Atkins at six bells. "The steam steering gear has broken-down, sir, and I can't make her move."

"By Jingo, that's a bad job," cried the skipper, but he was not long at a nonplus. "Run aft, Haldane, and you too, Spokeshave. Loosen the bunt of the mizzen-trysail and haul at the clew. That'll bring her up to the wind fast enough, if the sail only stands it!"

To hear was to obey, and both Spokeshave and I scuttled down the bridge- ladder as quickly as we could and away along the waist of the ship aft, the urgency of our errand hastening our movements if we had needed any spur beyond the skipper's sharp, imperative mandate.

But, speedily as we had hurried, on mounting the p.o.o.p-ladder and rushing towards the bitts at the foot of the mizzenmast to cast off the bunt- lines and clewlines of the trysail we found we had been already forestalled by an earlier arrival on the scene of action.

This was Mr O'Neil, the second officer, whom I had left below asleep in his cabin when I came up at two bells from the saloon, he having been on duty all the afternoon and his services not being required again until night, when he would have to go on the bridge to take the first watch from eight to midnight.

Feeling the bucketing-about we were having in the trough of the sea when we came about, and probably awakened by the change of motion, just as a miller is supposed to be instantaneously roused by his mill stopping, though he may be able to sleep through all the noise of its grinding when at work, Garry O'Neil had at once shoved himself into his boots and monkey jacket and rushed up on the p.o.o.p through the companion and b.o.o.by- hatch that led up directly on deck from the saloon.

Arrived here, he had evidently noted the vessel's insecurity, and, seamanlike, had hit upon the very same way out of the difficulty that had suggested itself to the skipper, having, ere we reached his side, cast off the ropes confining the folds of the trysail and trying singlehanded to haul out the clew.

"Begorrah, me bhoys, ye've come in the very nick o' time!" he exclaimed on seeing us. "Here, Spoke, me darlint, hang on to the end of this sheet and you, d.i.c.k, step on to the tail of it, whilst I take a turn of the slack round that bollard! Faith, it's blo'in' like the dievle, and we'll have our work cut out for us, me bhoys, to git a purchase on it anyhow. Now, all together, yo-heave-ho! Pull baker, pull dievle!"

With that, bending our backs to it, we all hauled away at the sheet, succeeding by a great endeavour in stretching the clew of the sail to the end of the boom, which we then secured amidships as best we could, though the spar and sail combined jerked to such an extent that it seemed as if the mizzenmast would be wrenched out of the ship each instant, the heavy fold of the canvas that hung loosely under the jaws of the gaff shaking and banging about with a noise like thunder.

Even the small amount of canvas exposed to the wind, however, was sufficient to supply the additional leverage required aft; and the engines working at half speed, with the headsails flattened, the ship's bows were presently brought up to the wind, when we lay-to under easy steam.

"Well done, my lads!" sang out the skipper from the bridge, when the ship's head was round and the peril of her broaching-to in the heavy seaway been fortunately averted; the wind was blowing aft, of course, and bringing his voice to us as if he stood by, and shouting in our very ears, "Now look sharp and come here under the bridge; I want you to cast off the lashings of the big wheel amidships and see that the yolk lines run clear. We shall have to manhandle the helm and steer from below, as the steam gear up here in the wheel-house is hopelessly jammed and will take a month of Sundays to get right!"

"Aye, aye, sir," we made answer, under his nose, having been scurrying forwards while he was speaking, the Irish mate adding in his native vernacular, "Begorrah, we'll rig up the whole, sir, in the twinkling of a bedpost, sure!"

"Hullo!" exclaimed the skipper, "is that you, O'Neil?"

"Faith, all that's lift of me, sir!"

"How's that?--I was just going to send down to your cabin to rouse you out."

"Begorrah, its moighty little rousin' I want, sor! The ould barquey's that lively that she'd wake a man who'd been d'id for a wake, sure!

I've been so rowled about in me burth and banged agin' the bulkheads that my bones fell loike jelly and I'm blue-mouldy all over. But what d'ye want, cap'en? Sure, I'm helping the youngster with this whale here."

"By jingo!" cried the skipper, "you're the right man in the right place!"

"Faith, that's what the gaolor s'id to the burghlor, sor, when he fixed him up noicely on the treadmill!"

The skipper laughed.

"Well, you fix up your job all right, and you'll be as good as your friend the gaoler," he said. "When we have the helm all alaunto again, we can bear up on our course and jog along comfortably. I think we are lucky to have got off so lightly, considering the wind and sea, with this steering gear breaking down at such an awkward moment!"

"Ah, we ain't seed the worse on it yet, and you'd better not holler till ye're out o' the wood!" muttered old Masters under his breath, in reply to this expression of opinion of the skipper, the boatswain having come to our a.s.sistance with all the hands he could muster, so as to get the wheel below the bridge in working order as soon as possible. "I knowed that this ghost-ship meant sumkin' and we ain't come to the end o' the log yet!"

Almost as he uttered the words, Mr Fosset came up the engine-room hatchway and made his way hurriedly towards us.

"By jingo, Fosset, here you are at last!" exclaimed the skipper on seeing him. "I thought you were never coming up again, finding it so jolly warm and comfortable below! Are things all right there now, and are the bilge-pumps working?"

Captain Applegarth spoke jocosely enough, everything being pretty easy on deck and the ship breasting the gale like a duck, but Mr Fosset's face, I noticed, looked grave and he answered the other in a more serious fashion than his general wont, his mouth working nervously in the pale moonlight that lent him a more pallid air as the words dropped from his lips, making his countenance, indeed, almost like that of a corpse.

"But what, man!" exclaimed the skipper impatiently, interrupting his slow speech before Mr Fosset could get any further. "Anything wrong, eh?"

"Yes, sir, I'm sorry to say something is very wrong, I fear--very wrong below," replied the other sadly. "There has been a sad accident in the stoke-hole!"

Old Masters, whose ears had been wide open to the conversation, here nudged me with his elbow as I stood beside him, and at the same time giving forth a grunt of deep and heartfelt significance.

"I knowed summet 'ud happen," he whispered in a sepulchral voice that sounded all the more gruesome from the attendant circ.u.mstances, the shrieking wind tearing through the riggings, the melancholy wash of the waves alongside, the moaning and groaning of the poor old barquey's timbers as if she were in grievous pain, while at that very moment the bell under the break of the fo'c's'le struck eight bells slowly, as if tolling for a pa.s.sing soul. "_You_ seed the ghost-ship, Mr Haldane, the same as me, for _I_ saw it, that I did!"

CHAPTER SEVEN.

DISASTER ON DISASTER.

"Accident in the stoke-hold!" repeated the skipper, who of course did not overhear the old boatswain's aside to me. "Accident in the stoke- hold!" again repeated the skipper; "anybody hurt?"

"Yes, sir," replied the first mate in the same grave tone of voice.

"Mr Stokes and two of the firemen."

"Seriously?"

"Not all, sir," said the other, glancing round as if looking for some one specially. "The chief engineer has one of his arms broken and a few scratches, but the firemen are both injured, and one so badly hurt that I fear he won't get over it, for his ribs have been crushed in and his lower extremities seem paralysed!"

"Good heavens!" exclaimed the skipper. "How did the accident happen?"

"They were searching under the stoke-hold plates to get out some cotton waste that had got entangled about the rosebox of the suctions, which, as we found out, prevented the bilge-pumps from acting, when, all in a moment, just when all the stray dunnage had been cleared out, the ship gave a lurch and the plates buckled up, catching the lot of them, Mr Stokes and all, in a sort of rat trap. Mr Stokes tumbled forwards on his face in the water and was nearly drowned before Stoddart and I could pull him out, the poor old chap was so heavy to lift, and he nearly squashed Blanchard, the stoker, by falling on top of him as we were trying to raise him up, cutting his head open besides, against the fire bars. Poor Jackson, however, the other fireman, was gripped tight between two of the plates and it was all we could do to release him, Stoddart having to use a jack-saw to force the edges of the plates back."

"My G.o.d! horrible, horrible!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the skipper, terribly upset and concerned. "Poor fellows; Jackson, too, was the best hand Stokes had below!"

"Aye, sir, and as good a mechanic, too, I've heard them say, as any of the engineers," agreed Mr Fosset, with equal feeling. "But, sir, I'm losing time talking like this! I only came up for a.s.sistance for the poor fellows and the others who are wounded. Where's Garry O'Neil?"

"Why, he was here under the bridge a moment ago," cried the skipper eagerly. "Hullo, O'Neil? Pa.s.s the word up, men, for Mr O'Neil. He's wanted at once! Sharp, look alive!"

Our second officer, it should be explained, was not only a sailor but a surgeon as well. He had run away to sea as a boy, and, after working his way up before the mast until he had acquired sufficient seamanship to obtain a mate's certificate, he had, at his mother's entreaty, she having a holy horror of salt water, abandoned his native element and studied for the medical profession at Trinity College, Dublin. Here, after four years' practice in walking the hospitals, he graduated with full honours, much to his mother's delight. The old lady, however, dying some little time after, he, feeling no longer bound by any tie at home, and having indeed sacrificed his own wishes for her sake, incontinently gave up his newly-fledged dignity of "Doctor" Garry O'Neil, returning to his old love and embracing once more a sea-faring life, which he has stuck to ever since. He had sailed with us in the _Star of the North_ now for over a twelvemonth, in the first instance as third officer and for the last two voyages as second mate, the fact of his being a qualified surgeon standing him in good stead and making him even a more important personage on board than his position warranted, cargo steamers not being in the habit of carrying a medical man like pa.s.senger ships, and sailorly qualities and surgical skill interchangeable characteristics!

Hitherto we had been fortunate enough to have no necessity for availing ourselves of his professional services, but now they came in handy enough in good sooth.

"Mr O'Neil?" sang out the men on the lower deck, pa.s.sing on his name in obedience to the skipper's orders from hand to hand, till the hail reached the after hatchway, down which Spokeshave roared with all the power of his lungs, being anxious on his own account to be heard and so released from his watch so that he could go below. "Mr O'Neil?" he again yelled out.

Spokeshave must have shouted down the Irishman's throat, for the next instant he poked his head up the hatchway.

"Here I am, bedad!" he exclaimed, shoving past Master "Conky," to whom he had a strong dislike, though "Garry," as we all called him, was friendly with every one with whom he was brought in contact, and was, himself, a great favourite with all the hands on board. Now, as he made his way towards the bridge, where some of the men were still singing out his name, he cried out, "Who wants me, sure? Now, don't ye be all spaking at once; one at a time, me darlints, as we all came into the wurrld!"

"Why, where did you get to, man?" said the skipper, somewhat crossly.

"We've been hunting all over the ship for you!"

"Sure, I wint down into the stowage to say if the yolklines and chains for the wheel were all clear, and to disconnect the shtame stayrin'

gear," replied our friend Garry. "But you'll find it all right now, with the helm amidships, and you can steer her wheriver you like; only you'll want four hands at least to hauld the spokes steady if she breaks off, as I fear she will, in this say!"