XXIII
A LANDFALL
In the dark of the morning a dense fog had closed around us, shuttingin our horizon when we had most need of a clear outlook. We hadexpected to sight the Lizard before dawn to pick up a Falmouth pilot atnoon, to be anchored in the Roads by nightfall--we had it all plannedout, even to the man who was to stand the first anchor-watch--and now,before the friendly gleam of the Lizard Lights had reached us, wasfog--damp, chilling, dispiriting, a pall of white, clammy vapour thatno cunning of seamanship could avail against.
Denser it grew, that deep, terrifying wall that shut us off, shipmatefrom shipmate. Overhead, only the black shadow of the lower sailsloomed up; forward, the ship was shrouded ghostly, unreal. Trailingwreaths of vapour passed before and about the side-lamps, throwing backtheir glare in mockery of the useless rays. All sense of distance wastaken from us: familiar deck fittings assumed huge, grotesqueproportions; the blurred and shadowy outlines of listening men aboutthe decks seemed magnified and unreal. Sound, too, was distorted bythe inconstant sea-fog; a whisper might carry far, a whole-voiced hailbe but dimly heard.
Lifting lazily over the long swell, under easy canvas, we sailed,unseeing and unseen. Now and on, the hand fog-trumpet rasped out asignal of our sailing, a faint, half-stifled note to pit against thedeep reverberation of a liner's siren that seemed, at every blast, tobe drawing nearer and nearer.
The Old Man was on the poop, anxiously peering into the void, thoughkeenest eyes could serve no purpose. Bare-headed, that he might thebetter hear, he stepped from rail to rail--listening, sniffing,striving, with every other sense acute, to work through the fog-banksthat had robbed him of his sight. We were in evil case. A dense fogin Channel, full in the track of shipping--a weak wind for workingship. Small wonder that every whisper, every creak of block or parrel,caused him to jump to the compass--a steering order all but spoken.
"Where d'ye mark that, now?" he cried, as again the liner's sirensounded out.
"Where d'ye mark ... d'ye mark ... mark?" The word was passed forwardfrom mouth to mouth, in voices faint and muffled.
"About four points on th' port bow, Sir!" The cry sounded far anddistant, like a hail from a passing ship, though the Mate was butshouting from the bows.
"Aye, aye! Stan' by t' hand that foresheet! Keep the foghorn goin'!"
"... Foresheet ... 'sheet ... th' fog'orn ... goin'!" The invisiblechoir on the main-deck repeated the orders.
Again the deep bellow from the steamer, now perilously close--thefutile 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 unitedshout from our crew, patter of feet as they run aft, the Mate shouting:"Down hellum, Sir--down hellum, f'r God's sake!"
"Hard down helm! Le' go foresheet!" answered to the Mate's cry, theOld Man himself wrenching desperately at the spokes of the wheel.Sharp ring of a metal sheave, hiss of a running rope, clank and throbof engines, thrashing of sails coming hard to the mast, shouts!
Out of the mist a huge shadowy hull ranges alongside, the wash from hersheering cutwater hissing and spluttering on our broadside.
Three quick, furious blasts of a siren, unintelligible shouts from thesteamer's bridge, a churning of propellers; foam; a waft of blacksmoke--then silence, the white, clammy veil again about us, and onlythe muffled throb of the liner's reversed engines and the uneasy lurchof 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 speedthrough 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 asteady rhythm; they would be on their course again, 'slowed down,'perhaps, to twelve knots, now that the nerves of the officer of thewatch had been shaken.
Slowly our barque was turned on heel, the yards trimmed to her formercourse, and we moved on, piercing the clammy barrier that lay betweenus and a landfall.
"Well, young fellers? Wha' d'ye think o' that now?" Bo'sun was thefirst of us to regain composure. "Goin' dead slow, worn't 'e? 'Boutfifteen, 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 wotthey puts it in 'er bloomin' log, blarst 'em!"
"Silence, there--main-deck!" The Old Man was pacing across the breakof the poop, pausing to listen for sound of moving craft.
Bo'sun Hicks, though silenced, had yet a further lesson for usyoungsters, who might one day be handling twenty-knot liners in such afog. In the ghostly light of fog and breaking day he performed anuncanny pantomime, presenting a liner's officer, resplendent in collarand cuff, strutting, mincing, on a steamer's bridge. (Sailormen walkfore and aft; steamboat men, athwart.)
"Haw!" he seemed to say, though never a word passed his lips. "Haw!Them wind-jammers--ain't got no proper fog'orns. Couldn't 'ear 'em atth' back o' a moskiter-net! An' if we cawn't 'ear 'em, 'ow do we knowthey're there, haw! So we bumps '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 asever over the water. At times we could hear the distant note of asteamer's whistle; once we marked a sailing vessel, by sound of herhorn, as she worked slowly across our bows, giving the three mournfulwails of a running ship. Now and again we cast the lead, and it wassomething to see the Channel bottom--grains of sand, brokenshell-pebbles--brought up on the arming. Fog or no fog, we were, atleast, dunting the 'blue pigeon' on English ground, and we felt, as daywore on and the fog thinned and turned to mist and rain, that alandfall was not yet beyond hope.
A change of weather was coming, a change that neither the Old Man northe Mate liked, to judge by their frequent visits to the barometers.At noon the wind hauled into the sou'-west and freshened, white topscurled out of the mist and broke in a splutter of foam under thequarter, Channel gulls came screaming and circling high o'er ourheads--a sure sign of windy weather. A gale was in the making; arushing westerly gale, to clear the Channel and blow the fog-rackinland.
"I don't like the looks o' this, Mister." The Old Man was growinganxious; we had seen nothing, had heard nothing to make us confident ofour 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' lookfor sea-room. Channel fogs, an' sou'-westers, an' fifteen-knot linersin charge o' b----y lunatics! Gad! there's no room in th' EnglishChannel now for square sail, an' when ye----"
"Sail O! On the port bow, Sir!" Keen, homeward-bound eyes had sighteda smudge on the near horizon.
"Looks like a fisherman," said the Mate, screwing at his glasses."He's standing out."
"Well, we'll haul up t' him, anyway," answered the Old Man. "Starboarda point--mebbe he can give us the bearin' o' th' Lizard."
Bearing up, we were soon within hailing distance. She was a Cardiffpilot cutter; C.F. and a number, painted black on her mains'l, showedus that. As we drew on she hoisted the red and white of a pilot onstation.
"The barque--ahoy! Where--are--'oo--bound?" A cheering hail thatbrought all hands to the rails, to stare with interest at theoilskin-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 thefog 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. Standin--as--far--as--thirty-five--fathoms--no less!" The pilot's Channelvoice carried far.
"Thank Heaven! That's definite, anyway,"
said the Old Man, turning towave 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 along 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 momentaryforgetfulness.
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. Fewwere standing out to sea, and that, and the sight of a fleet offishermen running in to their ports, showed that no ordinary weatherlay behind the fast-driving fog-wreaths. North of us heavy masses ofvapour, banked by the breeze, showed where the land lay, but noland-mark, no feature of coast or headland, stood clear of the mist toguide us. Cautiously, bringing up to cast the lead at frequentintervals, we stood inshore, and darkness, falling early, found usa-lee of the land with the misty glare of the Lizard lights broad onour beam. Here we 'hove-to' to await a pilot--"Thirty-five fathoms, noless," the Welshman had advised--and the frequent glare of ourblue-light signals showed the Old Man's impatience to be on his wayagain to Falmouth and shelter.
Eight we burnt, guttering to their sockets, before we saw an answeringflare, 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 andfalling in the sea-way, close a-lee.
"What--ship?" Not Stentor himself could have bettered the speaker'shail.
"The _Florence_, of Glasgow: 'Frisco t' Channel. Have ye got myorders?"
A moment of suspense. Hull, it might be, or the Continent: the answermight set us off to sea again.
"No--not now! (We're right--for Falmouth.) We had 'm a fortnightagone, but they'm called in since. A long passage, 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 passage,Pilot!"
"Well, well! You'm be goin' on t' Falmouth, I reckon--stan' by t' puta line in my boat!" A dinghy put off from the cutter; a frailcockle-shell, lurching and diving in the short Channel sea, and soonour 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--(Mainyardforrard, 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' glassstarted fallin' here about two--(Well--the mainyard!--a bit more o' th'lower tawps'l-brace, Mister!)--two o'clock yesterday afternoon--(How'sthe compass, Capten? Half a point! Keep 'er nor'-east b' nor', whenshe 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 IndiaDock on a wet Friday. A good job the fog's lifted. Gad! we had itthick this marnin'. We boarded a barque off th' Dodman.... Thought hewas south o' th' Lizard, he did, an' was steerin' nor'-east t' makeFalmouth! 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' mainto'galns'l, an' we'll be gettin' on?"