Kitabı oku: «"The Gallant, Good Riou", and Jack Renton», sayfa 4
JACK RENTON
Some yarns of an exceedingly tough and Munchausen-like character have been spun and printed by men of their adventures in Australian waters or the South Seas, but an examination of such stories by any one with personal knowledge of the Pacific and Australasia has soon, and very deservedly so, knocked the bottom out of a considerable number of them. Yet there are stories of South Sea adventure well authenticated, which I are not a whit less wonderful than the most marvellous falsehoods that any man has yet told, and the story of what befell John Renton is one of these. A file of the Queenslander (the leading Queensland weekly newspaper) for 1875 will corroborate his story; for that paper gave the best account of his adventures in one of their November (1875) numbers, and the story was copied into nearly every paper in Australasia.
Like Harry Bluff, John Renton "when a boy left his friends and his home, o'er the wild ocean waves all his life for to roam." Renton's home was in Stromness, in the Orkneys, and he shipped on board a vessel bound to Sydney, in 1867, as an ordinary seaman, he then being a lad of eighteen. When in Sydney he got about among the boarding-houses, in sailor-town, and one morning woke up on the forecastle of the Reynard of Boston, bound on a cruise for guano among the South Pacific Islands.
Renton had been crimped, and finding himself where he was, bothered no more about it, but went cheerfully to work, not altogether displeased at the prospect of new adventures, which would enable him to by and by go back to the old folks with plenty of dollars, and a stock of startling yarns to reel off. He was a steady, straightforward lad, though somewhat thoughtless at times, and resolved to be a steady, straightforward man. The vessel first called into the Sandwich Islands, and there shipped a gang of Hawaiian natives to help load the guano, then she sailed away to the southward for McKean's Island, one of the Phoenix Group, situated about lat. 3? 35' S. and long. 174? 20' W.
On board the Reynard was an old salt known to all hands as "Boston Ned." He had been a whaler in his time, had deserted, and spent some years beachcombing among the islands of the South Seas, and very soon, through his specious tongue, he had all hands wishing themselves clear of the "old hooker" and enjoying life in the islands instead of cruising about, hazed here and there and everywhere by the mates of the Reynard, whose main purpose in life was to knock a man down in order to make him "sit up." Presently three or four of the hands became infatuated with the idea of settling on an island, and old Ned, nothing loth, undertook to take charge of the party if they would make an attempt to clear from the ship. The old man had taken a fancy to young Renton, and the youngster, when the idea was imparted to him, fell in with it enthusiastically; for he was exasperated with the treatment he had received on board the guanoman—the afterguard of an American guano ship are usually a rough lot The ship was lying on and off the land, there being no anchorage, and before the plan had been discussed more than a few hours, the men, five in all, determined to put it into execution.
A small whaleboat was towing astern of the vessel in case the wind should fall light and the ship drift in too close to the shore. It was a fine night, with a light breeze, and there was, they thought, a good chance of getting to the southward, to one of the Samoan group, where they could settle, or by shipping on board a trading schooner they might later on strike some other island to their fancy.
By stealth they managed to stow in the boat a couple of small breakers of water, holding together sixteen gallons, and the forecastle bread barge with biscuits enough for three meals a day per man for ten days. They managed also to steal four hams, and each man brought pipes, tobacco, and matches. A harpoon with some line, an old galley frying-pan, mast, sail and oars, and some blankets completed the equipment For they took no compass, though they made several attempts to get at one slung in the cabin, and tried at first to take one out of the poop binnacle; but the officer of the watch on deck was too wide awake for them to risk that, and the cabin compass was screwed to the roof close to the skipper's berth; and so the old man who was their leader, old sailor and whaler as he was, actually gave up the idea of taking a compass, and these people without more ado, one night slipped over the side into the whaleboat, cut the painter, and by daylight the boat was out of sight of land and of the ship. They were afloat upon the Pacific, running six or seven miles before a north-east breeze and expecting to sight land in less than a week, and were already anticipating the freedom and luxury of island life in store for them.
Three days later it fell calm, and they had to take to the oars. The sun was intensely hot, the water a sheet of glass reflecting back upon them the ball of fire overhead. Now and again a cats-paw would ripple across the plain of water, but there were no clouds, there was no sight of land. They kept on pulling. For three, for four days—a week—for ten days—they tugged at the oars, except when a favouring breeze came. The water was reduced to a few pints, the food to a few days' half-rations. Their limbs were cramped so that they could not move from their places in the boat, their bodies were becoming covered with sores; and the wind had now died away entirely, the sea was without a ripple, and for ever shone above them the fierce, relentless sun.
Gradually it had dawned upon them that they were lost—that perhaps they had run past Samoa. The first eagerness of their adventure gave place to despair, and by degrees their despair grew to madness of a more awful kind.
