Under Wellington's Command Part 12

"Yes, I think so, but maybe there will be more wind presently."

Some time before reaching the gunboat, Ryan had lain down and the nets were thrown loosely over him, as it would be better that there should not seem to be more than the two hands that were generally carried in the small fishing boats. Once out of the river they steered south, laying a course parallel to the sh.o.r.e and about a mile out. After an hour's sail Jules directed her head into a little bay, took out an empty basket that he had brought with him, and stepped ash.o.r.e, after a cordial shake of the hand. He had already advised them to bear very gradually to the southwest, and had left a small compa.s.s on board for their guidance.

"They are things we don't often carry," he said, "in boats of this size; but it will be well for you to take it. If you were blown out of sight of land you would find it useful. Keep well out from the Spanish coast, at any rate until you are well past Bilbao; after that you can keep close in, if you like, for you will be taken for a fishing boat from one of the small villages.

"I shall walk straight back now to the town. No questions are asked at the gates and, if anyone did happen to take notice of me, they would suppose I had been round peddling fish at the farmhouses."

Coming along, he had given instructions to Terence as to sailing the boat. When running before the wind the sheet was to be loose, while it was to be tightened as much as might be necessary to make the sail stand just full, when the wind was on the beam or forward of it.

"You will understand," he said, "that when the wind is right ahead you cannot sail against it. You must then get the sail in as flat as you can, and sail as near as you can to the wind. Then when you have gone some distance you must bring her head round, till the sail goes over on the other side; and sail on that tack, and so make a zigzag course: but if the wind should come dead ahead, I think your best course would be to lower the sail and row against it. However, at present, with the wind from the east, you will be able to sail free on your proper course."

Then he pushed the boat off.

"You had better put an oar out and get her head round," he said, "before hoisting the sail again. Goodbye; bon voyage!"

Since leaving the river, Terence had been sailing under his instructions and, as soon as the boat was under way again he said to his companion:

"Here we are, free men again, d.i.c.ky."

"I call it splendid, Terence. She goes along well. I only hope she will keep on like this till we get to Corunna or, better still, to the mouth of the Douro."

"We must not count our chickens before they are hatched, d.i.c.ky. There are storms and French privateers to be reckoned with. We are not out of the wood yet, by a long way. However, we need not bother about them, at present. It is quite enough that we have got a stout boat and a favouring wind."

"And plenty to eat and drink, Terence; don't forget that."

"No, that is a very important item, especially as we dare not land to buy anything, for some days."

"What rate are we going through the water, do you think?"

"Jules said we were sailing about four knots an hour when we were going down the river, and about three when we had turned south and pulled the sail in. I suppose we are about halfway between the two now, so we can count it as three knots and a half."

"That would make," Ryan said, after making the calculation, "eighty-four miles in twenty-four hours."

"Bravo, d.i.c.ky! I doubted whether your mental powers were equal to so difficult a calculation. Well, Jules said that it was about four hundred miles to Corunna, and about a hundred and fifty to Santander, beyond which he thought we could land safely at any village."

"Oh, let us stick to the boat as long as we can!" Ryan exclaimed.

"Certainly. I have no more desire to be tramping among those mountains and taking our chance with the peasants than you have, and if the wind keeps as it is now we should be at Corunna in something like five days. But that would be almost too much to hope for. So that it does but keep in its present direction till we are past Santander, I shall be very well satisfied."

The mountains of Navarre and Biscay were within sight from the time they had left the river, and it did not need the compa.s.s to show them which way they should steer. There were many fishing boats from Nivelle, Urumia, and Saint Sebastian to be seen, dotted over the sea on their left. They kept farther out than the majority of these, and did not pa.s.s any of them nearer than half a mile.

After steering for a couple of hours, Terence relinquished the oar to his companion.

"You must get accustomed to it, as well as I," he said, "for we must take it in turns, at night."

By twelve o'clock they were abreast of a town; which was, they had no doubt, San Sebastian. They were now some four miles from the Spanish coast. They were travelling at about the same rate as that at which they had started, but the wind came off the high land, and sometimes in such strong puffs that they had to loosen the sheet. The fisherman had shown them how to shorten sail by tying down the reef points and shifting the tack and, in the afternoon, the squalls came so heavily that they thought it best to lower the sail and reef it. Towards nightfall the wind had risen so much that they made for the land, and when darkness came on threw out the little grapnel the boat carried, a hundred yards or so from the sh.o.r.e, at a point where no village was visible. Here they were sheltered from the wind and, spreading out the nets to form a bed, they laid themselves down in the bottom of the boat, pulling the sail partly over them.

"This is jolly enough," Ryan said. "It is certainly pleasanter to lie here and look at the stars than to be shut up in that hiding place of Jules's."

"It is a great nuisance having to stop, though," Terence replied. "It is a loss of some forty miles."

"I don't mind how long this lasts," Ryan said cheerfully. "I could go on for a month at this work, providing the provisions would hold out."

"I don't much like the look of the weather, d.i.c.ky. There were clouds on the top of some of the hills and, though we can manage the boat well enough in such weather as we have had today, it will be a different thing altogether if bad weather sets in. I should not mind if I could talk Spanish as well as I can Portuguese. Then we could land fearlessly, if the weather was too bad to hold on. But you see, the Spanish hate the Portuguese as much as they do the French; and would, as likely as not, hand us over at once at the nearest French post."

They slept fairly and, at daybreak, got up the grapnel and hoisted the sail again. Insh.o.r.e they scarcely felt the wind but, as soon as they made out a couple of miles from the land, they felt that it was blowing hard.

"We won't go any farther out. d.i.c.k, lay the boat's head to the west again. I will hold the sheet while you steer, and then I can let the sail fly, if a stronger gust than usual strikes us. Sit well over this side."

"She is walking along now," Ryan said joyously. "I had no idea that sailing was as jolly as it is."

They sped along all day and, before noon, had pa.s.sed Bilbao. As the afternoon wore on the wind increased in force, and the clouds began to pa.s.s rapidly overhead, from the southeast.

"We had better get her in to the sh.o.r.e," Terence said. "Even with this sc.r.a.p of sail, we keep on taking the water in on that lower side. I expect Santander lies beyond that point that runs out ahead of us, and we will land somewhere this side of it."

But as soon as they turned the boat's head towards the sh.o.r.e, and hauled in the sheet as tightly as they could, they found that, try as they would, they could not get her to lie her course.

"We sha'n't make the point at all," Terence said, half an hour after they had changed the course. "Besides, we have been nearly over, two or three times. I dare say fellows who understood a boat well could manage it but, if we hold on like this, we shall end by drowning ourselves. I think the best plan will be to lower the sail and mast, and row straight to sh.o.r.e."

"I quite agree with you," Ryan said. "Sailing is pleasant enough in a fair wind, but I cannot say I care for it, as it is now."

With some difficulty, for the sea was getting up, they lowered the sail and mast and, getting out the oars, turned her head straight for the sh.o.r.e. Both were accustomed to rowing in still water, but they found that this was very different work. After struggling at the oars for a couple of hours, they both agreed that they were a good deal farther away from the land than when they began.

"It is of no use, d.i.c.k," Terence said. "If we cannot make against the wind while we are fresh, we certainly cannot do so when we are tired; and my arms feel as if they would come out of their sockets."

"So do mine," Ryan said, with a groan. "I am aching all over, and both my hands are raw with this rough handle. What are we to do, then, Terence?"

"There is nothing to do that I can see, but to get her head round and run before the wind. It is a nuisance, but perhaps the gale won't last long and, when it is over, we can get up sail and make for the northwestern point of Spain. We have got provisions enough to last for a week.

"That is more comfortable," he added, as they got the boat in the required direction. "Now, you take the steering oar, d.i.c.k, and see that you keep her as straight as you can before the wind; while I set to and bale. She is nearly half full of water."

It took half an hour's work, with the little bowl they found in the boat, before she was completely cleared of water. The relief given to her was very apparent, for she rose much more lightly on the waves.

"We will sit down at the bottom of the boat, and take it by turns to hold the steering oar."

They had brought with them a lantern in which a lighted candle was kept burning, in order to be able to light their pipes. This was stowed away in a locker in the stern, with their store of biscuit and, after eating some of these, dividing a bottle of wine, and lighting their pipes, they felt comparatively comfortable. They were, of course, drenched to the skin and, as the wind was cold, they pulled the sail partly over them.

"She does not ship any water now, Terence. If she goes on like this, it will be all right."

"I expect it will be all right, d.i.c.k, though it is sure to be very much rougher than this when we get farther out. Still, I fancy an open boat will live through almost anything, providing she is light in the water. I don't suppose she would have much chance if she had a dozen men on board, but with only us two I think there is every hope that she will get through it.

"It would be a different thing if the wind was from the west, and we had the great waves coming in from the Atlantic, as we had in that heavy gale when we came out from Ireland. As it is, nothing but a big wave breaking right over her stern could damage us very seriously. There is not the least fear of her capsizing, with us lying in the bottom."

They did not attempt to keep alternate watches that night, only changing occasionally at the steering oar, the one not occupied dozing off occasionally. The boat required but little steering for, as both were lying in the stern, the tendency was to run straight before the wind. As the waves, however, became higher, she needed keeping straight when she was in a hollow between two seas. It seemed sometimes that the waves following behind the boat must break on to her, and swamp her but, as time after time she rose over them, their anxiety on this score lessened, and they grew more and more confident that she would go safely through it.

Occasionally the baler was used, to keep her clear of the water which came in in the shape of spray. At times they chatted cheerfully, for both were blessed with good spirits and the faculty of looking on the best side of things. They smoked their pipes in turns, getting fire from each other, so as to avoid the necessity of resorting to the lantern, which might very well blow out, in spite of the care they had at first exercised by getting under the sail with it when they wanted a light.

They were heartily glad when morning broke. The scene was a wild one. They seemed to be in the centre of a circle of mist, which closed in at a distance of half a mile or so, all round them. At times the rain fell, sweeping along with stinging force but, wet as they were, this mattered little to them.