Chapter 13. A Disastrous Voyage

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_ CHAPTER THIRTEEN. A DISASTROUS VOYAGE

I was soon myself again, and ready for the proposed voyage southward. Accordingly, Mr Troil having received directions from Mr Gray to send the _Good Intent_ to Lerwick to be refitted, Tom and I, bidding farewell, as we hoped, only for a short season to Miss Troil and Maggie, went on board the brig to assist in carrying her there, intending to proceed by the first vessel sailing after our arrival. Mr Troil sent us a pilot and a good crew to navigate the vessel, and accompanied her himself in his sloop, that he might assist us if necessary.

The wind was fair and the sea smooth, and thus without accident we arrived in that fine harbour called Brassa Sound, on the shore of which Lerwick, the capital of the islands, stands. We there found a vessel shortly to sail for Newcastle. Having taken in a cargo of coals, she was thence to proceed to Portsmouth. This so exactly suited our object that Mr Troil at once engaged a passage on board her for Jim and me.

After Portsmouth the town appeared small, but the inhabitants have large warm hearts, and were very kind to Jim and me. As he remarked, it is better to have large hearts and live in a small place than small cold hearts and to live in a large place. They seemed never to tire of asking us questions about our voyage in the _Good Intent_, and how we two boys alone managed to rig jury-masts and to keep her afloat.

"By just knowing how to do our work and sticking to it," answered Jim, to one of our friends.

If we had remained much longer at Lerwick we should have begun to fancy ourselves much more important persons than we really were; but the brig _Nancy_, Captain Gowan, was ready for sea, and wishing farewell to my kind relative, Mr Troil, who set sail in his ship to return home, we went on board. We soon afterwards got under way with a fair breeze, and before night had left Sumburgh Head, the lofty point which forms the southern end of the Shetland Islands, far astern.

The _Nancy_ was a very different sort of craft from the _Good Intent_. She was an old ill-found vessel, patched up in an imperfect manner, and scarcely seaworthy. Jim and I agreed that if she were to meet with the bad weather we encountered in our old ship she would go to the bottom or drive ashore.

We discovered also before long that Captain Gowan was a very different person from our former captain. He had conducted himself pretty well on shore, so that people spoke of him as a very decent man, but when once at sea he threw off all restraint, abused the crew, quarrelled with the mate, and neglected us, who had been placed under his charge.

Jim, who had to work his passage, slept in the fore-peak, but I was berthed aft. I, however, did as much duty as anyone. Jim told me that the men were a rough lot, and that he had never heard worse language in his life. They tried to bully him, but as he was strong enough to hold his own, and never lost his temper, they gave up the attempt. Captain Gowan growled when I came in to dinner the first day, which I knew that I had a right to do, and he asked if every ship-boy was to be turned into a young gentleman because he happened to have saved his life while others lost theirs?

I did not answer him, for I saw an empty bottle on the locker, and another by his side with very little liquor remaining in it. After this I kept out of his way, and got my meals from the cook as best I could.

Jim and I agreed that if the _Nancy_ had not been going direct to Portsmouth, we should do well to leave her at Newcastle, and try to make our way south on board some other vessel. Although we went, I believe, much out of our proper course, we at last entered the Tyne. Soon after we brought up, several curiously-shaped boats, called kreels, came alongside, containing eight tubs, each holding a chaldron; these tubs being hoisted on board, their bottoms were opened and the coals fell into the hold.

The kreels, which were oval in shape, were propelled by a long oar or pole on each side, worked by a man who walked along the gunwale from the bow to the stern, pressing the upper end with his shoulder while the lower touched the ground. Another man stood in the stern with a similar long oar to steer.

The crews were fine hardy fellows, known as kreelmen. I was astonished to hear them call each other bullies, till I found that the term signified "brothers." So bully Saunders meant brother Saunders.

Jim and I had had the sense to put on our working clothes, which was fortunate, as before long, with the coal-dust flying about, we were as black as negroes, but as everything and all on board were coloured with the same brush, we did not mind that.

With the help of the kreelmen the _Nancy_ was soon loaded, and we again sailed for the southward. Matters did not improve. The captain, having abstained from liquor while on shore, recompensed himself by taking a double allowance, and became proportionably morose and ill-tempered, never speaking civilly to me, and often passing a whole day without exchanging a word with his poor mate; and when he did open his mouth it was to abuse. The brig, though tolerably tight when light, now that she had a full cargo, as soon as a sea got up began to leak considerably, so that each watch had to pump for an hour to keep the water under. Jim and I took our turns without being ordered, but though accustomed to the exercise, it was hard work. When we cried "Spell ho!" for others to take our places, the captain shouted, "You began to pump for your own pleasure, now you shall go on for mine, you young rascals!" The men, however, though they at first laughed, having more humanity than the skipper, soon relieved us.

This was the third day after we sailed, when the wind shifting to the south-west, and then to the south, we stood away to the eastward in order to double the North Foreland. After some time it came on to blow harder than ever, but the brig was made snug in time, though the leaks increased, and all hands in a watch were kept, spell and spell, at the pumps. The captain behaved just as before, drinking all day long, though he did not appear to lose his senses altogether. The mate, however, looked very anxious as the vessel pitched into the seas each time more violently than before. I asked him if he thought she would keep afloat.

"That's more than I can promise you, my boy," he answered. "If the wind falls, and the sea goes down, we may perhaps manage to keep the leaks under; but if I were the captain I would run for Harwich or the Thames sooner than attempt to thrash the vessel round the Foreland."

"Why don't you propose that to him, and if he does not agree, just steer as you think best?" I said. "I suspect that he would not find out in what direction we were standing."

"Wouldn't he, though! Why, Peter, I tell you he would swear there was a mutiny, and knock me overboard," answered the poor mate in a tone of alarm.

He was evidently completely cowed by the captain, and dared not oppose him. The night was just coming on; the seas kept breaking over the bows, washing the deck fore and aft, and the clank of the pumps was heard without cessation. The captain sat in his cabin, either drinking or sleeping, except when occasionally he clambered on deck, took a look around while holding on to the companion-hatch, and then, apparently thinking that all was going on well, went below again. When I could pump no longer I turned in, thinking it very probable that I should never see another sunrise. By continually pumping, the brig was kept afloat during the night; but when I came on deck in the morning, the mate, who looked as if he would drop from fatigue, told me that the leaks were gaining on us. We were now far out, I knew, in the German Ocean, and if the brig should go down, there was too much sea running to give us a chance of saving ourselves.

Some time after daylight the captain came on deck, and he had not been there long when there was a lull. "Hands about ship!" he shouted.

The watch below tumbled up, and the brig was got round.

"Will you take charge, sir?" humbly asked the mate. "I have been on deck all night, and can scarcely stand."

The captain raved at him for a lazy hound. "I haven't turned in, either," he said, though he had been asleep in his chair for several hours. "I want my breakfast; when I've had that I'll relieve you."

The mate made no reply, and as soon as the captain went below he hurried forward to bid the cook make haste with the cabin breakfast. It was a difficult matter, however, to keep the galley fire alight, or the pots on it in their places. The weather seemed to be improving, but the men were well-nigh worn out with pumping. When the captain at last came on deck, in spite of their grumbling, he kept them labouring away as hard as ever, and ordered Jim and me to take our turn with the rest. This we did willingly, as we knew that unless all exerted themselves the brig must founder.

As noon approached, the captain brought up his quadrant, and sent below to summon the mate to take observations though the clouds hung so densely over the sky that there was but little chance of doing this.

"Might as well try to shoot the sun at midnight as now, with the clouds as dark as pitch," growled the mate. "What was the use of calling me up for such fool's work?"

"What's that you say?" shouted the captain. "Do you call me a fool?"

"Yes, I do, if you expect to take an observation with such a sky as we have got overhead," answered the mate.

"Then take that!" screamed the captain, throwing the quadrant he held in his hand at the mate's head, not, for the moment, probably, recollecting what it was.

It struck the mate on the temple, who, falling, let his own quadrant go, and both were broken to pieces.

"Here's a pretty business," cried one of the men, "I wonder now what will become of us!"

Good reason we had to wonder. The mate, picking himself up, flew at the captain, and a fearful struggle ensued. Both were too excited to know what they were about, and the captain, who was the stronger of the two, would have hove the mate overboard had not the crew rushed aft and separated them.

The mate then went below, and the captain rolled about the deck, stamping and shouting that he would be revenged on him. At last he also went down into the cabin.

Fearing that he would at once put his fearful threats into execution and attack the mate, I followed, intending to call the crew to my assistance should it be necessary. I saw him, however, take another pull at the rum bottle, and then, growling and muttering, turn into his bed. I waited till I supposed that he was asleep, and then I went to the mate's berth.

"There is no one in charge of the deck, sir," I said. "And if it was to blow harder, as it seems likely to do, I don't know what will happen."

"Nor do I either, Peter, with such a drunken skipper as ours," he answered. "What are the men about?"

"They have knocked off from the pumps, and if you don't come on deck and order them to turn to again they'll let the brig go down without making any further effort to save her," I answered.

My remarks had some effect, for though the mate had himself been drinking, or he would not have spoken as he did to the captain, he yet had some sense left in his head. He at last got up and came on deck. All the hands, except the man at the helm, were crouching down under the weather-bulwarks to avoid the showers of spray flying in dense masses over us. The sea had increased, and though we had not much sail set, the brig was heeling over to the furious blasts which every now and then struck her; if she righted it was only to bend lower still before the next.

"Do you want to lose your lives or keep them, lads?" shouted the mate, after sounding the well. "Well then, I can tell you that if you don't turn to at once and work hard, and very hard, too, the brig will be at the bottom before the morning."

Still the men did not move. Jim was holding on near me.

"Come, let you and me try what we can do," I said; "we have pumped to good purpose before now."

Jim needed no second asking. Seizing the brakes, we began, and pumped away with all our might, making the water rush across the deck in a full stream. Before long one man got up and joined, then another, and another. When we got tired and cried, "Spell ho!" the rest took our places.

"I see you want to save your lives, lads," cried the mate, who occasionally took a spell himself. "But you must keep at it, or it will be of no use."

All that day we stood on, the crew pumping without intermission.

"If the wind moderates we'll set more sail," said the mate; "but the brig has as much on her as she can bear. We must be soon looking out for land, though. You, Peter, have a sharp pair of eyes--go aloft, and try if you can see it."

Though the vessel was heeling over terribly at the time, I was about to obey, when Jim said, "No, you stay on deck; let me go, Peter."

To this I would not agree.

"Then I'll go with you," said Jim.

So we both crawled up the weather-rigging together. Jim said he thought that he saw land on the starboard bow, but I did not get a glimpse of it, and felt sure that he was mistaken; at all events there was no land visible ahead. We remained aloft till darkness came on, and there was no use remaining longer.

We made our reports to the mate. He said that Jim was right, and that we had probably passed the South Foreland.

This was, however, I suspected, only to encourage the men to keep at the pumps. All night long, spell and spell, we laboured away. When the morning broke no land was in sight. By this time we were all pretty well knocked up, and most of the men declared that they could pump no longer.

The mate now tried to make them keep on, reminding them that if they did not they would lose their lives. Some answered that they would take their chance, but Jim and I and others kept at our duty. Even we, however, began to feel that the struggle would be useless unless we should soon make the land, for the mate could not deny that the water was gaining on us.

The wind, however, began to moderate, and the sun bursting forth from between the clouds cheered us up a little.

At last the captain came on deck. After looking about him for some time he told me to go below and get his quadrant. He was apparently sober, and seemed to have forgotten what had happened.

"Have you a second one, sir?" I asked.

"No; bring the one I always use," he answered.

"You hove it at the mate yesterday, sir," I said. "And he fell and broke his."

"What lies are you telling, youngster?" he exclaimed, uttering a fearful oath. Then he shouted to the mate, who had gone forward to be out of his way.

"Did I heave my quadrant at you?"

"Yes, you did," answered the mate. "You made me break mine, too, and if we lose our lives you'll have them on your head."

The captain made no reply. I think that the occurrence must have flashed on his mind. He looked at the compass, took two or three turns on deck, and then ordered more sail to be set, directly afterwards changing the ship's course to north-west. I therefore supposed that we were steering for the Downs, or perhaps for Saint Helens. The men, though very tired, went on pumping far more willingly than before.

A bright look-out was kept for land, but no land appeared. For some hours the brig made fair progress, but as the evening drew on the wind again got up. The captain had gone below. He could not resist taking a pull at the rum bottle. We were carrying topsails and topgallantsails.

A sudden squall laid the brig over. The captain sprang on deck and shouted--

"All hands shorten sail! You, Peter and Jim, up aloft with you and hand the main-topgallant-sail."

The blast had passed over and the brig had righted. Jim and I ran aloft to obey the order.

The rest of the people were still on deck except one man, who had gone up the fore-rigging, about to let fly the sheets and brail up; but, nearly worn out with labouring at the pumps, they must have very slowly obeyed the orders they received, for almost before a sheet was let go, another furious squall struck the brig. Over, over she heeled.

Jim and I slid down into the main-top.

"Hold on, whatever happens," cried Jim.

The warning was given not a moment too soon. There was a fearful cracking sound, the mast quivered, it was almost right over the water, and just as the brig was on her beam-ends it gave way, tearing out the chain-plates on the weather side, and Jim and I were hurled with it into the raging sea.

I expected every moment that we should be washed off as the mast was towed along, and so we must have been had not the lee shrouds given way.

To regain the brig was impossible; the next instant the mast was clear and the brig drove on. Before she had got a cable's length from us the foremast also went by the board.

We could see no one on it as it was towed along. A minute or more passed.

The mast to which we clung rose to the top of a sea, we saw the brig plunge into another. Again we looked, for one instant we saw her stern, and the next she was gone.

We were too far off to hear a cry. The foremast must have been drawn down with her. The boats were securely lashed. Nothing that we could see remained floating. We knew that our late shipmates had perished.

Our own condition was fearful in the extreme. At any moment we might be washed from our hold! Now our head were under water! Now we rose to the top of a sea and looked down into a deep gulf below us.

"Hold on; hold on, Peter," cried Jim, who was clinging on the mast close to me. "Don't give up. Here, I've cut a piece of rope for you. Lash yourself on with it. I'll get a piece for myself presently."

I wanted him to secure himself first, but he insisted that I should take the rope, and I lashed myself with it. He soon afterwards secured himself in the same way. We might thus prolong our lives; but should we be able to hold out till a passing vessel might pick us up? I asked myself.

We were far away from land, and hours, perhaps days, might go by before the mast was seen, and only our dead bodies would be found. We had no food, no fresh water; night was coming on. I did not tell my thoughts to Jim, nor did he say what was passing in his mind; but we tried to cheer each other up. For an instant the clouds broke asunder in the west, and the sun, just as he sank below the horizon, bursting forth, shed a bright glow over the foaming ocean.

"He'll not be long down," cried Jim, "and he'll warm us on t'other side when he rises."

Jim's remark did me good. We had cause to hope for the best. The squall which had carried away the brig's masts was the last of the gale. The wind rapidly fell, and the sea went down, so that in a short time we could keep ourselves almost entirely out of the water. The mast became more quiet. Had we not lashed ourselves to it when we fell asleep as we both did now and then, we might have dropped off. We talked as much as we could, both to keep up our spirits and to prevent ourselves from dozing. Thus the night passed. It seemed long enough, but not so long as I expected. I must have closed my eyes when I heard Jim shout, "A sail! A sail!" and opening them I saw a large ship under all sail about a couple of miles away, standing on a course which we hoped would bring her near us. _

Read next: Chapter 14. Jim And I Carried Off Against Our Will

Read previous: Chapter 12. Port Reached In An Unexpected Manner

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