III
THE OVERCROWDED ICEBERG
There was a deal of ice about, and it came streaming south, in all kinds of shapes, right into the track of ships. There were flat-topped bergs and ice-fields, and there were all kinds of pinnacled danger-traps which were obviously ready to turn turtle and load up any unwary steamer with more ice than she would ever require to make cocktails with. That year ice was reported in great quantities as far south as latitude 40°, and there is every reason to believe that there was more ice run into than was ever reported by one unlucky liner and five tramps which were posted at Lloyd's as 'Missing.' The Western Ocean is no-peace-at-any-price body of water, and it tries those who sail it as high as any sea in the world, but when the Arctic turns itself loose and empties its refrigerator into the ocean fairway it becomes what seamen call 'a holy terror.'. For ice brings fog, and fog is the real sea-Devil, worse than any wind that blows. It was a remarkable thing in such circumstances that Captain Harry Sharpness Spink of Glo'ster preserved his equanimity. As Ward, the mate of the Swan of Avon, said, he wasn't likely to preserve the Swan.
"Dry up, Ward," said his commanding officer, "be so good as to dry up. When I require your advice to run the Swan I'll let you know, but in the meantime any uncalled-for jaw on that or any other subject will make me very cross."
"Do you think you can like me since you went to see that swab at the Foreign Office?" asked Ward, as he edged towards Spink. "Don't you savvy, Spink, that I'm just as able as I was before to pick you up and sling you off of this bridge on to the main-deck?"
"That's as may be," said Spink, "and I don't deny by any means that you are a truculent and insubordinate beast. That's why I shipped you. But it don't follow by no means that because my unfortunate disposition compels me to have officers that can lick me, that I should let 'em navigate the Swan on the high lonesome principle. As I said before, you will be so good as to shut your head. Ice or no ice, I'm going at my speed, not yours. Do you think you are out yachting that I should look after your precious carcase?"
"I believe you are ready to cast her away," said Ward. "Are the bally owners going shares with you?"
Spink shook his bullet head.
"They ain't, and you know it. Ward. There are men would take such an insinuation as an insult, and if I could lick you perhaps I would. But you know as well as I do that if I wanted to cast her away I'd not do it here. There's no kind of fun that I so despise as open boats in cold weather, and the Western Ocean in ice-time isn't my market for a regatta. I ain't called on to explain to a subordinate my idea in running full speed through this fog and ice, but out of more regard for your feelings than you ever show for mine I don't mind revealing to you that I'm trusting to my luck."
"Your luck!"
"Yes, my luck," replied Spink with great firmness; "for luck I have and no fatal error. I've been thinking of it a lot this trip, and come to the conclusion that I've more solid luck than any man I know intimate. To say nothing of my commanding a rust and putty kerosine can like this old tramp at the age of thirty, when you, that can lick me in a scrap, have to be my mate though you're older, didn't I come out of that little affair at Aguilas with flying colours?"
"You came out with a hole in the funnel that you had to pay for yourself," said Ward. "I don't see where your luck came in."
"Don't you see it might have been worse, you ass?" cried Spink irritably. "But that's nothing. What I've been pondering over chiefly is my very remarkable luck in never having been caught, for a permanency, by any of the ladies that have been after me."
"They haven't lost much," said Ward discourteously. "And I reckon that you are mistook when you think you're that enticing that women hankers to drag you in by the hair of your head and kiss you by force."
"I never said so," replied Spink; "but the fact remains that I'm not married."
"You're a selfish beast, Spink, and I sincerely hope you'll be married before you're through," said Ward.
"You are the most insolent mate I ever had," replied Spink, "and the most unfeeling. Did you hear a fog-horn?"
Though it was in the middle of the forenoon watch it was pretty nearly as dark off the Banks as it would have been inside a dock warehouse, for the fog was as thick as a blanket. The rail and the decks were slimy with it, and the skipper and his mate were as wet as if it had been raining. The fog came swirling in thick wreaths, and sometimes half choked them. The wind from the north-east was light but very cold, as if it blew off the face of an iceberg, as it probably did. The Swan had an air of thorough discomfort, and in spite of it was steaming into the west at her best speed of nine knots an hour.
It is no wonder that Spink and Ward quarrelled; there was hardly a soul on board who was not in a bad temper. Nothing disturbs seamen as much as fog, and the fact that Spink refused to be disturbed by it made it all the worse for the others. Ward was distinctly nervous, and let the fog play on his nerves. He saw steamers ahead that had no existence, and heard fog-horns that were nothing but the sound of his own blood in his ears.
"Yes, I do hear a fog-horn. It's on the starboard bow," he said anxiously.
"Not a bit of it, Ward, it's on the port bow. It's some darned old wind-jammer. I'll give her a friendly hoot."
He made the whistle give a melancholy wail, which was not answered by the ship for which it was intended, but by a gigantic liner which burst through the fog looking like high land, and booming at the rate of at least twenty knots. She loomed over them in the obscurity, and Ward gave an involuntary howl which fetched the Swan's crowd out on deck in time to see that there was no need to kick their boots off and swim for it. They were also in time to answer the insulting remarks of the liner's two officers on the bridge, as she scraped past them with about the length of a handspike to spare.
"You miserable, condemned tramp," said the liner as she swept by.
"Oh, you man-drowning dogs," replied the crowd on the Swan.
And everything else that was said never reached its mark. The liner was swallowed up, and resumed her attempt to make a good passage in spite of what she logged as 'hazy' weather.
"What did I tell you about my luck?" asked Spink coolly, and Ward very naturally had nothing to say till he got his breath. What he said then could only have been said to a skipper who had so unfortunate a disposition towards violence that he had to ship officers who could lick him.
"You are a wonder," said Ward, "and I wish you had been dead before I saw you. Ain't you thinking of others' lives if you ain't of your own?"
"What's the use of arguing with a thick-head like you, Ward?" asked Spink. "If that blamed express packet slowed down to our jog-trot her skipper would feel as sick as if he had anchored, and he'd log it 'dead slow,' and the rotters that judge divorces and collisions would call him the most praiseworthy swine that ever ran another ship down. What's the logic of it? Why should I daunder along at five knots? I might be lingering just where I'd be caught by such another or by a berg. I trust in Providence and my luck, and if you don't like it you can get out and walk."
At this moment a bellow was heard for'ard, 'Ice on the starboard bow,' and Spink, who for all his talk had the eyes of a cat, motioned to the man at the wheel to starboard the helm a few spokes. The Swan ground past a small berg, and had a narrower shave than with the liner.
"If we'd been going a trifle slower, Ward," said the skipper, "I might have plugged that lump plump in the middle, and you would have been down on the main-deck seeing the boats put over the side."
"There's no arguing with you," growled the mate, "you'd sicken a hog, and I wish it was Day's watch instead of mine. If he has the same temper when he wakes that he went below with, you'll have a dandy time with him."
He relapsed into a silence which Spink found more trying than open insubordination, for Spink was a cheerful soul.
"Here, I can't stand this, Ward"
"What can't you stand?" asked Ward sulkily.
"Not being spoken to, of course," replied the skipper. "I order you to be more cheerful. I don't ask you to be polite, for I know you can't be; but you can talk when you aren't wanted to, so you just talk now."
"I won't unless you slow down," said Ward. "I don't see why I should talk and be cheerful with a sea-lunatic."
"Well," said Spink, "I'll slow her down to half speed to please you, for the Lord knows there's enough ice about without my having a lump of it for a mate. Ring her down to half speed, and be danmed to you!"
Ward rang her to half speed without any second order.
"And I sincerely hope I shan't regret bein' weak enough to give way," said Spink, "for I'm a deal too easy-going and reasonable."
He lighted his pipe and smoked steadily. As both Ward and Day admitted, he might be hard to get along with, but he had nerves which would have done credit to a bull. Most skippers in the Western Ocean get into the state of mind which sees disaster before it is in sight, and if they don't take to drink it is because they die of continued scares. Spink feared nothing under heaven, and though he sometimes drank more than was good for him, it was not because he wanted it, but because he liked it. There is a great distinction between these two ways of drinking. After a few minutes of silence he turned to Ward.
"Do you feel easier in your mind, Ward?"
"I do," said Ward. "I own it freely."
Spink snorted.
"As sure as ice is ice when you get a command of your own you'll take to drink," said Spink. "And now, as you're satisfied at getting your own way, I'll go below and have a snooze."
About six bells in the forenoon watch the Swan ran out of 'Bank weather' into beautiful sunlight, and Ward rang her up to full speed. All about them were icebergs small and large, which sparkled like jewels in the sun. There was one long, low berg right ahead of them, there was one to the south'ard which was peaked and scarped and pinnacled into the semblance of a mediæval castle. Ward, as Spink said, had no soul for beauty unless it wore petticoats, and to him, as to all seamen, ice in any shape was ugly.
"If he'd had his way she'd have come a mucker on that beggar ahead," said Ward, as he passed to windward of the big, table-topped berg. "I wish we was out of it. This fine spell won't last long, and there is more thick weather ahead of us or I'm a Dago."
He gave her up to Day at noon with pleasure, and took his grub alone as the skipper was fast sleep. When he turned out again at four o'clock he found the fog as thick as ever, and Bill Day as cross as he could stick at having to yank the whistle laniard every minute or so. As soon as Ward showed his nose on the bridge Bill let out at him.
"What kind of a relief do you call this?" he demanded savagely. "I wish I'd had this laniard round your neck, I'd have had you out of your bunk in good time, I swear."
As a matter of fact. Ward was only three minutes behind time, and always prided himself on giving a good relief.
"Has Double Glo'ster been worrying you that you're so sick?" he asked. "You know damn well that you owe me hours. Oh, don't talk, go below and die, as you always do when you see blankets. Has there been much ice?"
"It's blinking all round the bally shop," returned the second mate. "Didn't you wake when I stopped her dead?"
"No," said Ward.
"And you talk of my dying when I get below," retorted Day. He slid off the bridge, and proceeded to justify he mate's accusation by falling asleep before his head touched the pillow, in spite of the melancholy hootings of the Swan as she picked her way delicately in the fog and ice. It was very nearly eight bells again before Captain Harry Sharpness Spink of Glo'ster showed on deck. As he meant to stay on deck all night he had really been very moderate.
"So I've missed Newcastle?" he said.
"Lucky for you," returned Ward; "his temper was horrid."
Spink sighed.
"I'm the most unfortunate man that ever commanded any blasted hooker that ever sailed the seas," he said. "Day tries me more than you do. Ward. There are times I regret I ever knew him. I must have been brought up badly to have such a disposition as I have. Well, well, it can't be helped, a man is what he was meant to be, there is no get-away from that. But I should admire to see you plug him. Oh, I say, it's fairly thick, ain't it?"
It was a deal thicker than much of the pea-soup served up in the Swan, though Spink rather prided himself on the way the men were fed in her.
"Are you nervous?" asked Spink.
"I ain't by any means happy," said Ward; "and no seaman worthy of the name can be happy on the Banks in weather like this."
"That's a slur on me, I know," said Spink, "but I overlook it."
"What would you do if you didn't?" asked Ward.
Spink did not reply to this challenge, and inside of a minute both he and Ward had something to think of besides quarrelling about nothing. The fog lifted for a moment, and showed ice all about them. The air grew bitterly cold, and was soon close on the freezing point. Spink slowed her down again, and almost literally felt his way through the obstacles. Once he touched a small berg, but when he did so he was going dead slow. Ward stood by and saw the 'old man' handle the Swan with admiration. When they were once more through the thick of it he spoke.
"I wish I could understand you, Spink," he said, with far more respect than he often showed. "You're the most reckless skipper I ever sailed with, and now you're more careful than I should be."
"I don't trust in my luck till I can't see," said Spink, and he turned her over to Ward, saying, "Go your own pace, my son. It's most agreeable when you are civil."
And next minute the catastrophe happened, for at half speed the old Swan bunted her nose into a low but very solid berg, and the result was very much the same as if she had tried conclusions head on with a dock wall. She crumpled up like a bandbox when it is inadvertently sat on, and it would have been obvious to the least instructed observer that her chance of going much farther was a very small one indeed. She trembled and was jarred to her vitals, her iron decks lifted up like a carpet with the wind underneath it, one of the funnel stays parted with a loud twang, and the crowd forward came out on deck as if the devil was behind them. And the fog was still so thick that it was impossible to see them from the bridge. But they soon saw Bill Day, for even his ability to sleep through most things could not stand being thrown out of his bunk.
"What's up now?" roared the second mate. And the skipper showed at his very best.
"Ward would have her at half speed," said Spink coolly, "and that gave the southerly drift time to bring that blasted berg just where it could do its work."
And poor Ward hadn't a word to say. Spink had plenty. He spoke to the crew below.
"Keep quiet there you," he snapped, without the least sign of a disturbed mind. And up came the chief engineer, M'Pherson, in pyjamas and a blue funk.
"What's happened, captain? Oh, what's gone wrang the noo?" he cried.
"She's hit more than a penn'orth of ice, Mr. M'Pherson," replied the skipper, "and if I were you I'd get my clothes on. Tell me what water she is making, and look sharp. Mr. Ward, see to the boats. Mr. Day, take the steward and a couple of hands and get some stores up on deck."
He was so cool that he inspired unlimited confidence, although it was now obvious to them all that the Swan's very minutes were numbered. It did not require old Mac's report that the water was coming on board like a millstream to show them that. The engineers and firemen came on deck, and Spink addressed them in what he considered suitable and encouraging terms.
"Now then, you stokehold scum, less jaw there, you won't get drowned this trip."
They were exceedingly glad to hear it, for a lot of them were of a different opinion and said so. There was no time to waste, and indeed none was lost. The real trouble began when it was found that one boat wouldn't swim, after the manner and custom of boats in the Mercantile Marine, and when another was staved in by a swinging lump of ice the moment it took the water. This lump was a small 'calf' of the larger berg which they had struck on, and the next moment the original obstacle swung alongside and ground heavily against the steamer.
"There ain't enough boats," said the skipper. "Mr. Ward, d'ye think you could hook on to that berg? We'll have to board it and make out as best we can."
As the Swan was a vessel of close on fourteen hundred tons, her kedge anchor ought to have weighed something like four and a half hundred-weight. As a matter of fact it had once belonged to something in the shape of a tug, and it weighed barely two. Ward picked it up as if it was a toy and hove it on the berg, and followed it with a warp.
"Bully for you," said the skipper, and as he spoke the Swan gave forth a noise very much like a hiccup. "Down on the ice the port watch, and the others get the stores over the side. Steward, all the blankets you can get. Mr. Day, put over the side anything to make a raft of; we may want one if the berg melts."
Spars and hencoops and everything that would float went over the side, some of it on the ice and some of it into the water. A couple of hands in the only sound boat kept her clear of the berg and the Swan, and shoved the floating dunnage to those on the new vessel, which had promptly been christened 'The Sailors' Home.' Their late home was about to disappear, and said so in terms that were quite unmistakable by the initiated.
"Now then," said Spink, "when the rest of you are over the side I'm ready. Ward, take the chronometer as I lower it down. And be careful with this bag, there's the ship's papers and my sextant in it."
"Now boom her off," said Spink, "for the Swan's going."
There was a tremendous crack on board.
"The fore bulkhead," said Spink, and then the poor old Swan cocked her stern in the air. A furious gush of steam came up from the engine-room and all the stokehold ventilators, until the sea came almost level with the after hatch.
"She's going down head-foremost," said the crew, "poor old Swan."
And then there was a mighty shivaree on board. The whole of the cargo in No. 1 and No. 2 holds fetched away, and evidently shot right out at the bows. All this mixture of cargo must have been followed by the engines slipping from their beds, for instead of doing a dive head-foremost, the Swan's stern, which had been high in air, went under with a big splash, and she lifted her ragged bows in the fog before she went down with a long-drawn, melancholy gurgle.
"She wasn't such a bad old packet after all," said the sad crew. And for at least a minute no one said another word. Then Ward spoke.
"Where the hell's your luck now, Spink?"
"What's become of your theory that half speed in a fog is any better than going at it at my rate?" asked Spink. "You haven't a leg to stand on, and I don't propose to take advice from you again. You've disappointed me sadly! My luck is where it was, except in the matter of my officers, and it's notorious that I have no luck with them. We're out of the Swan without a life lost, we've got heaps of grub, plenty of blankets, and a fine comfortable iceberg under us. There's many this hour in the Western Ocean that might envy us, and don't you make any error about that. I come from Glo'ster, and my name is Captain Harry Sharpness Spink, and drunk or sober it's as good as havin' your life insured to sail with me. Oh, I'm all right, and I propose to plug the first man that growls, if he's as big as the side of a house."
None of them was in trim to take up the challenge, and Spink lighted his pipe.
"Three cheers for the captain," said the crew; and they cheered him heartily, for which he thanked them almost regally, though he somewhat spoilt the effect of it afterwards by telling them to go to hell out of that and pick a place to camp in at a little distance.
"So far as I can see in this fog there's plenty of room for everyone," said Spink, as the night grew dark. That was where he was wrong, for they soon discovered by falling into the water on the far side, that they were on no great ice island, but had picked a very small berg indeed. Spink consoled them by telling them that they wouldn't be on it long, and they could hardly help believing him as he seemed so certain of it.
"And after all," he said to Day and Ward, "the old Swan was insured for more than she was worth, and I shouldn't be surprised if the owners were pleased with the catastrophe."
He wrapped himself in blankets and lay down. In five minutes he was breathing like a child.
"I tell you," said the second mate, "the 'old man' is a wonder, for all we have to treat him like a kid. I say, Ward, let's be kind to him to-morrow and say Glo'ster is just as good as any other county."
"I don't mind," said Ward; "but if we do he'll take advantage of it."
"Oh, let him," said Day. "He's a fair scorcher, and if he gets too rowdy we can always put him down. On my soul I'm gettin' to like him. He's got the pluck of a bull-dog. Where's old Mac?"
They found Mac sitting in a puddle of melting ice-water, weeping about his family at Glasgow. The second engineer, whose name was Calder, was trying to console his chief by saying it might have been worse.
"It canna be waur, man," said old Mac. "What can be waur than bein' wreckit, and on a wee sma' bit o' ice that's veesibly meltin' as I sit on it? The cauld is strikin' through to my very banes, and in the hurry I've had the sair misfortune to come away wi'out the medicine for my rheumatics. To-morrow I'll be i' a knot wi' 'em, and nothing for it but cauld water, which I couldna abide sin' I was a bairn. And all my work on the engines wasted. I'm a mournful man this hour."
He drank something out of a bottle. As he had left his medicine behind it could not have been that. It certainly did him no good, for he wept all the more after taking it, and throwing himself in Calder's arms he insisted that the second engineer was his mother, and begged her not to insist on his having a cold bath.
"He's a puir silly buddy," said Calder, "and I've no great opeenion of him as an engineer, though he's no' the fool he seems the noo."
And the night wore away while Mac wept and Spink slept the sleep of the righteous, and Ward and Day smoked in silence. As for the crew, they lay huddled up together, and only woke to swear at the new kind of 'doss.' On the whole, everyone but the chief engineer was not unhappy, and even he, by reason of the attention he paid to the bottle which did not contain medicine, fell fast asleep and snored like a very appropriate fog-horn. The dawn broke very early, at about three, and it found most of the inhabitants of the berg still unconscious. In the night the fog had lifted, and the sea was almost as calm as a duck-pond. What wind there was now blew from the west, and was much warmer than it had been. Within a mile there were two or three other small bergs, but when Spink grunted and yawned and crawled out of his blankets there was nothing else in sight.
"Humph," said Spink, "this is a rummy go, and if I didn't come from Glo'ster I should be in a blue funk. I must keep up my spirits, and show 'em what my luck's like. I've been in worse fixes than this many a time, and after all, with a good seaworthy berg underfoot, and lashings of grub, I don't see why anyone should growl. If anyone does I'll knock his head off. Now, which of these jokers is the cook?"
He found the steward, and booted him gently in the ribs. At least he said it was gently, whatever the aggrieved steward thought of it.
"Now then, Cox," said the skipper, "turn out and find me the cook,—he's one of this pile of snorin' hogs,—and let's have some breakfast."
By the time the grub was ready, Ward and Day were 'on deck' and the sun was beginning to think of doing the same. The two mates looked round the horizon and saw nothing to comfort them. The only cheerful thing in sight was the skipper, and for very shame the more pessimistic Ward screwed up a smile.
"Not so bad, is it?" asked Spink.
"It might be worse, I own," replied the mate. "What course are you steerin', Spink?"
"Straight for Glo'ster," replied Spink cheerfully. "How did you chaps sleep?"
Ward said he hadn't slept at all, but Day averred that he had dreamt he had been locked in a refrigerator belong to some cold-meat steamer from Australia. And just then the steward said that breakfast was ready. It consisted of cold tinned beef, iced biscuit, and melted berg. There were signs of a mutiny among the crew at once.
"Say, cook, where's the cawfy?" they asked, and they were only reduced to a proper sense of the situation by a few strong remarks from Captain Spink. The riot subsided before it really began, and all the 'slop-built, greedy sons of corby crows,' as Spink called them, sat down meekly and ate what they were given. And then the sun came up and warmed them, and they soon began to feel well and happy. But now the real trouble of the situation began to develop. The heat of the summer sun when it once got high enough to do some work began to melt the berg. It was rather higher in the middle than it was on the edges, and it was most amazingly slippery. The water ran off it in streams, and as it was barely big enough to start with, it looked as if they would shortly be crowded.
"I never thought of this," said Spink. "I tell you, Ward, she'll turn turtle before we know where we are. We must put all the stores in the boat, and have a man in her to keep her clear if the berg capsizes."
"Your luck ain't what you let on," said Ward gloomily; "the thing fair melts under us, and we'll have to swim."
"To thunder with your croaking," said Spink. "Oh, do dry up."
"I wish the berg would," said Ward, as he superintended the shipment of the stores. When it was done he put a cockney deck-hand into her and made him shove off.
"Blimy," said Lim'us, "I'm likely to be the on'y dry of the 'ole shoot."
The word 'shoot' soon threatened to become highly appropriate, for about noon the berg was distinctly cranky. However fast it melted above, it was obviously melting much faster down below, for they had apparently struck a streak of comparatively warm water, and when ice does go it goes fast. The 'crowd' got very uneasy, and Spink got very cross as he arranged them so as to trim his craft.
"Sit still, you swine," said Spink. "Do you want to capsize us?"
"But we're so cold be'ind, sittin' still, sir," said one bolder than the rest.
"I'll warm you if I have to come over and speak to you," said Spink, and he presently undertook to do it. The moment he rose to carry out his threat the iceberg wobbled in the most dreadful manner, and so encouraged the offender that he laughed.
"If you come to 'it me, captain, she'll go over," he said with a malicious grin.
"So she will," said Ward, laying hold of the skipper to prevent his moving. But Spink was not to be baulked. He spoke to another of the men sitting near the mutineer.
"Jackson, you come here while I go over there and dress Billings down."
"Don't you go, Jackson, for if you do I'll dress you down to a proper tune arterwards," said the insubordinate Billings, as he grabbed hold of Jackson, who looked at the skipper appealingly.
"What am I to do, sir?" he asked.
"You're to obey orders," said Spink.
"Don't you forgit I'll plug you if you do," said Billings.
Poor Jackson was obviously in serious difficulties, for Billings was the boss and bully of the fo'c'sle. He could even lick any of the firemen, and there were some very tough gentry among that gang.
"If I don't come over to you, sir, what will you do?" Jackson asked the skipper nervously.
"I'll come over to you, if we're in the drink the next moment," replied Spink firmly. "Don't any of you Johnnies think you can best me. Are you coming or are you not?"
Jackson shook his shock head.
"This is very hard lines on a peaceable cove like me," said Jackson; "but if I am to catch toko, I'd much rather take it from Billings than from you, sir."
And as he spoke, he smote Billings very violently on the nose. Billings, who expected nothing less, let a horrid bellow out of him, and promptly slipped on the ice. He fell, and slid overboard with a howl, and the berg came near to capsizing then and there.
"Well done, Jackson," said Spink approvingly, as Billings disappeared in the sea, "very well done indeed." And then Billings rose to the surface.
"Can you swim, Billings?" asked Spink with an air of kindly curiosity. "Oh, yes, I see you can, so keep on doing it till you feel a little less mutinous."
It took Billings rather less than a minute to become obedient, for though the sea was warm enough to melt the berg it was by no means so warm as a swimming bath, and he presently howled for mercy, and was dragged upon the ice once more.
It was lucky for Billings that the sun by now was really hot. He stripped off his clothes and squeezed them as dry as he could, while he threatened to kill Jackson as soon as he could. His threats were interrupted by the sound of a large crack, and presently there were obvious signs that the berg was about to capsize. Lim'us got quite excited as they discussed the situation, and came in close, till Ward ordered him to get farther away. As he rowed off reluctantly he encouraged them by yelling, "She's goin' over! May the Lord look sideways at me if she ain't."
"Oh, oh!" said poor old Mac, "I'm a puir meeserable sinner wi' a sore head and no medicine, and I'll be wet in a crack, and I'll die wi'out a wee drappie. Oh, oh, oh!"
And the berg stopped cracking but took on an ugly cant. A big lump of ice broke off it down below and came up to the surface with a leap.
"Steady, you swine," said Spink politely to his unhappy crew; and Ward asked him where his luck was. Whatever answer he was to get he never knew, for with a curious heave the berg started on a roll, and with a suddenness which took them all with surprise she bucked them into the Atlantic, together with what materials they had for a raft. It was a lucky thing for at least half of them that there had been time to save such dunnage from the Swan, for half the crowd, including M'Pherson and Day, could not swim a stroke. Ward grabbed Day and helped him to a spar, and Spink did the same for old Mac. And in the meantime Lim'us made everyone furious by squealing with laughter in the boat. Billings threatened him with death when he got hold of him, and Spink had no mind or breath to rebuke the horrid and bloodthirsty language with which the late mutineer reinforced his threats.
"Oh, oh!" squealed old Mac when the skipper laid hold of him; "oh, oh, I'm drooned, I'm drooned! and I've the rheumatism bad in a' my joints."
And Spink said he was the howling and illegitimate descendant of three generations without any character whatever, as he dragged him to a floating oar alongside the capsized berg. Now it was not so high out of water, and there was far more space on it. For some time it would be comparatively stable, and when Spink scrambled on it the first of anyone he congratulated himself on his never failing luck. He helped the rest on board, and the whole space was soon occupied by an unclad crowd wringing the Atlantic out of their clothes, and trying to get warm in the sun. It was quite astonishing how cheerful everyone was, with the single exception of that confirmed pessimist the chief engineer. At their end of the berg the men took to skylarking, and Billings actually forgave Jackson.
"You done what I'd ha' done myself," said Billings, "for I owns now I'd a'most as soon take on that big brute Ward as 'ave the skipper get about me. But when I give 'im that back-talk I was that icy be'ind that I was like froze Haustralian mutting, and as cross as if my old woman 'ad been relatin' what 'er mother thought of me. I furgives you, Jackson, I furgives you this once. But don't you hever 'it me on the smeller agin, or a penny peep-show won't be in it for the sight you'll be."
It was considered by the crowd that Billings by this act of nobility had shown himself a 'gent,' and Billings swaggered greatly on the strength of it.
The crew, of course, did not think. They were not paid to do so. All that was the officers' business. It hardly occurred to them that the ice on which they stood wasn't likely to last for ever. In the warmth of the sun they forgot the discomforts of the past night, and did not think of the night to come. But Ward did, and he was still very gloomy on the situation.
"Just as she spilt us," said Ward, "I was askin' you your opinion of your luck. What do you think of it now? Perhaps you'll use that regal authority of a skipper to get us out of the hole you've got us in."
If ever any skipper had the right to be justly indignant, Spink thought he was that man.
"The hole I got you in! I like that, oh, I do like that. Who was it, I ask, that pestered me to go half speed, and almost wept till I said 'Have your own way, you cross-eyed swine'?"
"You never addressed them words to me," said Ward truculently, "or I'd have given you what for, and well you know it."
Spink shook his head.
"I ain't sayin' that I used them very words," he urged, "all I mean is that that was what I meant when I let you have your own silly way, which has landed me and Day, to say nothin' of the rest, on a penn'orth of ice in mid-Atlantic, more or less."
"Don't bring me into the argument," said Day. "You're a cunning sort of a chap, Spink, but you needn't try to raise ructions between me and Ward, for I won't have it. I know you, Spink."
"I'm a very unfortunate man," said poor Spink, "for at this very moment I'd give three months' pay to be able to lick the pair of you. I did think after what the Chief Foreign Officer said of my authority that I should be more civilly treated by my officers, even if I have an unfortunate disposition which compels me to lick them if I can. I shipped you two because I can't, but that ain't any reason for makin' me miserable, or at any rate more miserable than bein' in the position of not bein’ able to."
"Oh, all right," said Day, "go ahead and moan. Nobody's stoppin' you, is he? Let him alone, Ward. He's all right; and as for fightin', I believe I could teach him to be too much for myself in a month with the boxin’ gloves."
"I wish you would," said Spink. "Oh, Day, you've no notion how I should enjoy pastin' you."
He fell into contemplation of such a joy, and did not speak till Ward clapped him on the back and said he was a very good sort after all.
"And if it's any use to you, I own that my havin' gone half speed that time may have put us here. But sayin' so much don't mean that I now approve of buttin' headlong into an ice-pack at twenty knots an hour. But to go back to what I was sayin' before you started this row, Where's your luck, Spink? To my mind it don't look so healthy a breed of luck as you let on, and it's my notion that old Mac is of my opinion, to judge by the sad expression of his countenance."
"To blazes with the old fool!" said Spink. "Who cares what he thinks? My luck is where it was, and I reckon to get out of this with flyin' colours, and never a man short, and nothin' against the certificates of any of us. I've noticed all my life that I seem to be under the especial care of Providence, and I don't believe Providence will go back on me after plantin' me here all safe and sound on an iceberg. Day, rake up that cook, and give the cockney in the boat a hail. We'll have some grub. I've a twist on me like a machine-made hawser."
They went to dinner, and the sun did something of the same sort. At anyrate it went out of sight, and a thick fog came down on the castaways.
"We 'opes no bloomin' packet 'll come and run us pore blighters down," said the men as they fell to work on the grub, "for accordin' to the 'old man,' who is the cheerfulest bloke in difficulties we ever struck, we're right in the track of the ole shoot of 'em, and may be picked up or scooted into the sea again any minute."
As a matter of fact, they were then on the southern tail of the Bank, for when the Swan bunted her nose into the berg, she was pretty well at the locality on the Grand Bank where the usual 'lane' to New York is left for the lane to Halifax. The very watch before the collision they had verified their position by flying the 'blue pigeon,' as seamen call the deep-sea lead, and ever since then they had been floating in the Labrador current to the south and east. To locate them exactly, they were just about where the Great Circle Track of steamers from the English Channel to the Gulf of Mexico crosses the tail of the Bank. There was every chance of something coming along there, even if it was getting late enough in the season for the big liners to take the route to the southward for fear of the very ice which had brought them to grief.
"Oh, yes," said the crowd, when they were full up with food, "we're all right."
Nevertheless the fog did not cheer them up to any great extent, and when it showed signs of lasting all day they grew less happy.
"A hundred vessels might pass us in this," said Ward, who for all his bigness had much less endurance than the skipper, and was now hardly more cheerful than old Mac. "I wish I was out of it."
"Oh, wish again," retorted Spink contemptuously. "Do you know. Ward, that you make me tired? What do you get by howlin' and growlin'? I know this is goin' to come out all right, and I won't be discouraged by any silly jaw of a man that ought to know better. Shut up."
And to Day's surprise Ward shut up. At that very moment there came a bellow from Billings, who had relieved Lim'us in the boat.
"Berg, ahoy!" roared Billings.
"Hallo!" replied the skipper. "What's the matter now?"
"I 'ears a steamer, so help me Dick!" bellowed Billings joyfully. "I 'ears 'er plain. Don't none of you blokes 'ear 'er too?"
There was such a buzz among the crowd that it would have been hard to hear a fog-horn, and it was not until Spink had hit three, kicked half a dozen, and used at least ten pounds' worth of bad language, according to 19 Geo. II. cap. 21, that anything like silence was restored. Then it was obvious that Billings had made no mistake. The sea was fairly calm, the breeze from the west was light, and any sound carried long and far.
"She's coming from the westward," said Spink, as he consulted a toy compass on his watch-chain.
"No," said Day, "she's bound west, or I'm a Dutchman."
"Then you come from Amsterdam for a certainty," said the 'old man' crossly. "Now, men, shout all together when I say three. One, two, three."
And just as the men yelled there was a hoot-too-oot from the steamship, which for a moment made them believe she had heard them. But Spink knew better, and when there was another hoot he grabbed Day by the arm.
"By Jemima," said Spink, "we're both right, Day. There are two of 'em; that second squeal never came out of the same whistle that the first one did!"
Now the nature of fog is something that no fellow can understand. Seamen must not think they are a long way off if they hear a sound faintly, or even if they do not hear it at all. That's bad enough, but there is worse behind. They are not to reckon they are near because they hear it plainly, or that it isn't to be heard farther away at some other spot if they cease to hear it at all. And, furthermore, any notion that a sound comes from any particular direction is the biggest trap of the lot. Now the uninitiated can understand that they do not understand, and that seamen are in the same awkward fix whenever a fog comes down to cheer them on their weary way. The two steamers coming out of nothingness and butting into it were commanded by men who trusted to the evidence of their senses, as if they were police magistrates trusting to policemen. They hooted and bellowed in the 'most wonderful manner, and said with one short blast that they were directing their course to starboard. And as neither knew where the other was, or where he was himself, they directed their courses with the most marvellous precision to the exact spot on the tail of the Grand Bank in the Western Ocean where they could collide. And they did so with a most horrid grinding crash, and with one long, last, fearful and hopeless wail on their steam-whistles.
"Holy sailor," said the iceberg's crew, "this time they've been and gone and done it!"
Ward asked Spink sickly if he had any remarks to make about his luck. Spinks hadn't, but he had some remarks to make about Ward, which in other circumstances would have led to war. While he was relieving his overcharged mind there was a horrid uproar coming out of the fog, for both the steamships were blowing off steam, and everyone on board of them appeared to be running the entire show at the top of his voice. And just as it was all at its extreme point of interest the fog played one of its commonest tricks, and with an anacoustic wall shut off the whole dreadful play in one single moment.
The castaways turned to each other in alarm, and Billings, who had nearly lost himself in the fog, rowed in close.
"I think they've both foundered," said Billings, and it certainly looked as if he were right, in spite of what Spink said to him.
"I believe the josser is right," said Day; and old Mac wept and said he was sure of it, and that he had the rheumatics badly, and that he was very cold. And to add to Spink's joy, once more Ward asked if he still thought he was under the especial protection of Providence. Then for the first time Spink lost his temper and went for Ward, and by dint of taking him by surprise served him as Jackson had served Billings.
"Take that, you swab," said the enraged skipper. "I'll teach you to be so discouraging and so blasphemous as to cast a slur on Providence."
And when Ward climbed upon the ice again all he said was—
"All right, Spink, you wait till we're on board that beastly packet you and Providence have up your sleeves."
And everyone sat down and smoked, and said how grieved they were for the poor unfortunate beggars who had been drowned through having no nice comfortable iceberg to take refuge on. Then they had their supper and went to sleep, leaving all their cares in the faithful hands of poor Spink.
"Ah," he sighed, "my unfortunate disposition cuts me off from all real sympathy. I've no one to confide in at sea or ashore, and as if bein' a ship-master wasn't solitary enough I must plug Ward and make him hostile. I wish I'd been brought up better and licked more before I got into this fatal habit of fighting."
He couldn't go to sleep, and took to walking as far as the narrow limits at his disposal would allow him. When he found that he was in for a restless night he told the man on the lookout that he could turn in. Jackson, who happened to be the look-out, lingered a little before he did as he was told.
"Do you think, sir," he asked with some trepidation at his daring to speak to the skipper, "do you think, sir, that we shall ever get out o' this?"
"Of course we shall," said Spink. "What do you suppose I'm here for? Go to sleep, Jackson, and mind your own business. You'll be all right."
And Jackson, who was a simple-minded seaman of the real old sort, fell asleep feeling that the 'old man' was to be relied on even on an iceberg in the Western Ocean and in a fog as thick as number one canvas.
For by now the fog was thick and no mistake. As Spink walked the ice, and squelched with his sea-boots in the melted puddles, he could hardly see his hand before his face, and more than once he nearly walked overboard. At midnight it was even thicker, and he was obliged to give up walking and come to an anchor on a tin of corned beef, and though he was on watch it has to be owned that he dozed for a few minutes, just as Lim'us did in the boat which lay a little way off the berg. When Spink woke he found it just about as dark as their prospects. When his eyes cleared, he sighed and looked about him, with a mind which took some of its tone from the fog and from the dull dead hour of two o'clock in the morning.
"I wonder if my luck is out," he sighed, and he stared solidly into the solidest darkness. It was certainly monstrously dark in one direction. He rubbed his eyes and grunted. Then he lighted a match and looked at his little compass. His mind went back to the lady in Bristol who had given it to him.
"She was a very pretty piece," said Spink thoughtfully. "But I'm damned if I can see why it should be darkest towards the east."
He rose up and peered into the fog. Again he rubbed his eyes, and then stood staring.
"Perhaps another berg," he said, "but"
He stood as still as if his figure had been turned into stone, and presently he looked to the sleeping crowd, who were all as solid with sleep as if they were dead, and nodded in the strangest way.
"Oh, oh, if it is; if it only isn't a horrid delusion," he murmured. He turned to the darkness again and shook his fist at it and the fog. At that very moment the fog rolled up like a curtain. Right in front of Spink, and not farther than a man could chuck a biscuit, there lay the strange and almost monstrous apparition of a silent, lightless, and derelict steamer!
"What did I say to Ward about Providence?" asked Spink of the whole Atlantic Ocean. "Ward cast a nasty and uncalled-for slur on its ways when he said what he did. But now I've got the bulge on him, and no fatal error about it."
He rubbed his hands together and smiled very happily.
"There'll be fine pickings in this and no mistake," he murmured. "Oh, this'll be something like salvage. And I'll lay dollars to cents that I can tell how it happened. Ah, here comes the fog again!"
The fog dropped down in a thin veil, till the dim and ghostly derelict looked still less substantial than it had done. Then it heaved and rolled in, and the deserted packet could be seen no more. Spink sighed but was happy.
"I'll give Ward the biggest surprise he ever had in his life," he said, as he turned to the boat in which young Lim'us was doing a very solid caulk. Spink kicked some ice into small lumps, and at the third attempt he hit the sleeper on the side of his head. Lim'us woke with a start, and he heard the captain's voice just in time to prevent him threatening to eviscerate the swab who was slinging things at him.
"Hold your infernal jaw," said Spink in a savage whisper, "and pull in here quiet, or I'll murder you."
Lim'us obeyed instantly, though he had doubts as to whether it was wise to come within arm's length of the skipper after having been caught asleep.
"I warn't asleep, sir; stri'my blind if I was," he began as he came up to the berg.
"Dry up and say nothin'," said Spink. "If you wake anyone I'll see you don't sleep again for a week. Hand up some of that truck and get the stern sheets clear, I want to get in myself."
There was more than a chance of not finding the derelict and of losing the iceberg, and Spink knew it. Just as he was about to chance it he remembered that he had a couple of balls of strong twine in the bag into which he had dumped all his belongings, including the precious ship's papers, when he left the Swan. As he recalled this lucky fact a heavenly smile overspread his handsome features.
"It's a splendid notion," said Spink. "I feel as proud of it as a dog with two tails! I wish those chaps at the Foreign Office were here now; they would enjoy it better than a play."
He stepped to his bag as lightly as a Polar bear after a sleeping seal, and when he found the twine he tied the end of it to Ward's leg. "Ward at one end and Providence at the other," said Spink, with a grin. "Oh, won't he be surprised!"
And the skipper went back to the boat, paying out the twine as he went. He was chuckling in the merriest way, and poor Lim'us, who was cold, and very sick of the whole affair, thought that the strain had been too much for him.
"’E's balmy on the crumpet, that's what's the matter wiv 'im," said Lim'us as he obeyed orders reluctantly, and pulled into the solid fog with a mad and grinning skipper, who would probably scupper him as soon as they were out of earshot of the crew.
"I wish I was in Lim'us," said he. "I'd give all my wyges to see Commercial Rowd again."
And still Spink chuckled and paid out the twine, until suddenly the boat ran into a still deeper darkness.
"Easy boy," said the skipper, with a strange note of exultation in his voice. "Easy, we're there now."
As he spoke the boat ground up against the side of the derelict, and Lim'us turned about on the thwart and touched the iron plates with his hand.
"If you let a yell out of you," said the captain, "I'll cut your throat from ear to ear."
But indeed Lim'us was incapable of yelling. All he could do was to gasp, and he did that as effectively as if he was a bonito with the grains in him. And the boat drifted towards the vessel's bows, while Spink looked for the easiest way on board.
"They ran like rats," said Spink. "Oh, I know the way they ran. They got on board the other boat, and think this one is now surprisin' the codfish."
They reached the bows at last, and came round on the port side, and there Spink found what he looked for. The vessel had been cut down to within six inches of the water's edge about forty feet aft from the bow.
"Just as I laid it out in my mind," said Spink. "Catch hold you, while I get on board."
He dropped about ten fathoms of the twine into the water, and with the rest of the ball in his pocket he scrambled up the horrid gash in the derelict's side and got on deck. He walked for'ard and got the twine clear out on the starboard side, pointing for the unconscious mate. Then he made it fast and took a look at his new command. In spite of the fog it was not difficult to see that she was a fine new boat of about two thousand tons, built and fitted, as was pretty obvious from her derricks, for a fast freight boat. It was equally obvious that the whole crew had evacuated her in a panic, for Spink found the skipper's berth with the bed-clothes on the floor, along with a sad and derelict pair of trousers. The 'old man' had evidently been in his bunk instead of being on the bridge, and, so far as Spink could see, he had stayed to grab nothing but the ship's papers, without which there can be no maritime salvation.
"This will be a very valuable salvage job," said Spink, as he licked his lips after taking a pull at a bottle of whiskey which he found only too handy to the lips of the former skipper. "There's money in this, oh, lots of it. And now I'll show Ward where my luck comes in. And I'll have old Mac and Calder patch up that rent in her before it comes on to blow again."
He put the bottle in his pocket and went for'ard, feeling a deal more proud than if he owned a fleet. For the deserted steamer, the name of which was the Winchelsea of Liverpool, was a direct proof that his luck was still what it had been. He found the end of the twine, and hauled in the slack very cautiously.
"I wish I could see his face," said Spink, as he gave the twine a yank which made Ward sit up suddenly and wonder what had happened to him.
"Oh, oh, oh!" said Ward. The ice was nearer than it had been, and what he said was quite audible on board the Winchelsea.
"Eh, what?" said Ward, And then Spink gave the line another yank which almost started Ward on an ice run for the water. But this time he found out what was the matter, and laid hold of the twine.
"Who the devil's pulling my leg?" he roared in such stentorian tones that the whole crowd woke up instantly.
"I am," said Spink. "And I'll thank you to pay attention, and not lie there snoring while I do all the work."
"Where are you?" asked Ward. "I can't see you."
"Where d'ye think I am?" asked Spink. "While you were asleep I went out and looked for a new job and found it."
As he spoke there were sudden signs of dawn, and once more the curtain of the mist rolled away, and the late crew of the Swan saw a big steamer within fifty feet of them, with the late skipper of the Swan leaning over her side smoking his morning pipe.
"Jerusalem!" said the crew, and they shook their heads with amazement, while Ward scratched his. Day whistled, old Mac burst into joyful tears, and Billings used some awful language to show his gratitude. And Spink said—
"When you have washed and shaved and put on clean collars, I should be much obliged by your coming on board and doing enough work to melt the hoar-frost that's on you. Limehouse, scull over to the berg, and look quick about it."
In ten minutes they all found themselves on board, and Mac and Calder set to work before breakfast to patch her up. The engines and furnaces were still warm, and it took little time to get up steam. But Ward took some to get up his. As he said, it was a fair knock-out, and it seemed like some black magic on the part of the skipper, who walked the bridge after breakfast as if he owned the whole North Atlantic.
"She was bound for England, and we'll go home," said Spink. "And as soon as may be we'll find out what's in her. This is my first salvage, and it's goin' to be a good one."
"You're a wonder," said Ward.
"Didn't I always say so?" replied Spink modestly. "And now I hope that you and Day will behave yourselves, and not trade on any weaknesses that I may have, for I won't put up with it if you do."
"How do you propose to stop it?" asked Day. "You can't plug me or Ward any better now than you could before. Why don't you behave? Then there would be no trouble. I'm fair sick of hearin' about your unfortunate disposition."
"So am I," said Ward.
Spink shook his head with disgust.
"And this kind of talk after what I've done," he said. "I wish you would read old Kelly's little book on the Mate and His Duties, Ward. It would teach you how to behave."
"I had it in the Swan," said Ward, "but though it had a lot in it about land-saints and sea-devils, there was nothin' in it that fitted a man like you."
"Perhaps not," said Spink thoughtfully. "I own I'm rare, I'm very rare."
The fog cleared right off, and the sun shone and the calm sea sparkled. In such circumstances everyone ought to have been happy, but Spink said he wasn't.
"I wish I wasn't so rare," said Spink.