Kitabı oku: «The Adventures of Billy Topsail», sayfa 13

CHAPTER XXXVII

In Which the Men are Lost, the Dictator is Nipped and Captain Hand Sobs, "Poor Sir Archibald!"

WHEN the last party of hunters had been landed from the Dictator, the ship was taken off the ice field; and there she hung, in idleness, awaiting the end of the hunt. It was then long past noon. The darkening sky in the northeast promised storm and an early night more surely than ever. It fretted the captain. He was accountable to the women and children of Green Bay for the lives of the men; so he kept to the deck, with an eye on the weather: and while the gloom deepened and spread, a storm of anxiety gathered in his heart – and, at last, broke in action.

"Call the watch, Mr. Ackell!" he cried, sharply. "We'll wait no longer."

He ran to the bridge, signalled "Stand by!" to the engine-room, and ordered the firing of the recall gun. The men of the last party were within ear of the report. It brought all work on the ice to a close. The men waited only to pile the dead seals in heaps and mark possession with flags.

"Again, mate!" shouted the captain. "They're long about comin', it seems t' me."

A second discharge brought the men on a run to the edge of the ice. It was evident that some danger threatened. They ran at full speed, crowded aboard the waiting boats, and were embarked as quickly as might be. Then the ship steamed off to the second field, five miles distant, to pick up the second party. When she came within hearing distance, three signal guns were fired, with the result that, when she came to, the men were waiting for the boats.

It was a run of six miles to the field upon which the first party had been landed – part of the way in and out among the pans. The storm had now taken form and was advancing swiftly, and the fields in the northeast were hidden in a spreading darkness. The wind had risen to half a gale, and it was beginning to snow. A run of six miles! The captain's heart sank. When he looked at the black clouds rising from behind the coast, he doubted that the Dictator could do it in time. An appalling fortune seemed to be descending on the men on the ice.

"But we may make it, mate," said the captain, "if – "

"Ay, sir?"

"If they's no ice comin' with the gale."

The ship had been riding the open sea, skirting the floe. Now she came to the mouth of a broad lane, which wound through the fields. It was the course; along that lane, at all hazards, she must thread her way. The danger was extreme. The wind, blowing a gale, might force the great fields together. Or, if ice came with the wind, the lanes might be choked up. In either event, what chance would there be for the men? In the first event, which was almost inevitable, what chance would there be for the Dictator herself?

"Cap'n Hand, sir," the mate began, nervously, "is you goin' – "

The captain looked up in amazement when the mate stammered and stopped. "Well, sir?" he said.

"Is you goin' inside the ice, sir?"

"Is I goin' WHAT?" roared the captain, turning upon him. "Is I goin' WHAT, sir?"

It was sufficient. The captain was going among the fields. The mate needed no plainer answer to his question.

"Beg pardon, sir," he muttered meekly. "I thought you was."

"Huh!" growled the captain.

When the ship passed into the lane, the storm burst overhead. The scunner in the foretop was near blinded by the driven snow. His voice was swept hither and thither by the wind. Directions came to the bridge in broken sentences. The captain dared not longer drive the vessel at full speed.

"Half speed!" he signalled.

The ship crept along. For half an hour, while the night drew on, not a word was spoken, save the captain's quiet "Port!" and "Starboard!" into the wheelhouse tube. Then the mate heard the old man mutter:

"Poor b'y! Poor Sir Archibald!"

No other reference was made to the boy. In the captain's mind, thereafter, for all the mate knew, young Archibald Armstrong, the owner's son, was merely one of a crew of sixty men, lost on the floe.

"Ice ahead!" screamed the lookout in the bow.

The ship was brought to a stop. The lane she had been following had closed before her. The mate went forward.

"Heavy ice, sir," he reported.

Broken ice, then, had come down with the wind. It had been carried into the channels, choking them.

"Does you see water beyond, b'y?" the captain shouted.

"'Tis too thick t' tell, sir."

The captain signalled "Go ahead!" The chance must be taken. To be caught between two fields in a great storm was a fearful situation. So the ship pushed into the ice, moving at a snail's pace, labouring hard, and complaining of the pressure upon her ribs. Soon she made no progress whatever. The screw was turning noisily; the vessel throbbed with the labour of the engines; but she was at a standstill.

"Stuck, sir!" exclaimed the mate.

"Ay, mate," the captain said, blankly, "stuck."

The ship struggled bravely to force her way on; but the ice, wedged all about her, was too heavy.

"God help the men!" said the captain, as he signalled for the stopping of the engines. "We're stuck!"

"An' God help us," the mate added, in the same spirit, "if the fields come together!"

Conceive the situation of the Dictator. She lay between two of many vast, shifting fields, all of immeasurable mass. The captain had deliberately subjected her to the chances in an effort to rescue the men for whom he was accountable to the women and children of Green Bay. She was caught; and if the wind should drive the fields together, her case would be desperate, indeed. The slow, mighty pressure exerted by such masses is irresistible. The ship would either be crushed to splinters, or – a slender chance – she would be lifted out of danger for the time.

Had there been no broken ice about her, destruction would have been inevitable. Her hope now lay in that ice; for, with the narrowing of the space in which it floated, it would in part be forced deep into the water, and in part be crowded out of it. If it should get under the ship's bottom, it would exert an increasing upward pressure; and that pressure might be strong enough to lift the vessel clear of the fields. The captain had known of such cases; but now he smiled when he called them to mind.

"Take a week's rations an' four boats t' the ice, mate," he directed, "an' be quick about it. We'll sure have t' leave the ship."

While the mate went about this work, the captain paced the bridge, regardless of the cold and storm. It was dark, the wind was bitter and strong, the snow was driving past; but still he paced the bridge, now and then turning towards the darkness of that place, far off on the floe, where his men, and the young charge he had been given, were lost. The women of Green Bay would not forgive him for lives lost thus; of that he was sure. And the lad – that tender lad —

"Poor little b'y!" he thought. "Poor Sir Archibald!"

For relief from this torturing thought, he went among the men. He found most of them gathered in groups, gravely discussing the situation of the ship. In the forecastle, some were holding a "prayer-meeting"; the skipper paused to listen to the singing and to the solemn words that followed it. Here and there, as he went along, he spoke an encouraging word; here and there dropped a word of advice, as, "Timothy, b'y, you got too much on your back; 'tis not wise t' load yourself down when you takes t' the ice," and the like; here and there, in a smile or a glance, he found the comforting assurance that the men knew he had tried to do his duty.

"Cap'n John Hand," he thought, when he returned to the bridge, "you hasn't got a coward aboard!"

The mate came up to report. "We've the boats on the ice, sir," he said, "an' I've warned the crew t' make ready."

"Very well, Mr. Ackell; they's nothin' more t' be done."

"Hark, sir!"

The ice about the ship seemed to be stirring. Beyond – from far off in the distance to windward – the noise of grinding, breaking ice-pans could be heard. There was no mistaking the warning. The moment of peril was at hand.

"The fields is comin' together, sir."

"Call the crew, Mr. Ackell," said the captain, quietly.

The men gathered on deck. They were silent while they waited. The only sounds came from the ice – and from overhead, where the wind was screaming through the rigging.

"'Tis comin', sir," said the mate.

"Ay."

"God help us!"

"'Twill soon be over, Mr. Ackell," observed the captain.

He awaited the event with a calm spirit.

CHAPTER XXXVIII

And Last: In Which Wind and Snow and Cold Have Their Way and Death Lands on the Floe. Billy Topsail Gives Himself to a Gust of Wind, and Archie Armstrong Finds Peril and Hardship Stern Teachers. Concerning, also, a New Sloop, a Fore-an'-After and a Tailor's Lay-Figure

BILL o' Burnt Bay did not lead a race for the landing place. When he looked up, a thick curtain of snow hid the flags. It was then apparent to him that he and his men must pass the night on the ice. In a blizzard of such force and blinding density, no help could reach them from the ship, even if she managed to reach the place where the men were to be taken aboard.

Nothing was visible but the space immediately roundabout; and the wind had risen to such terrific strength that sound could make small way against it. Thus, neither lights nor signal guns could be perceived – not though the ship should beat her way to within one hundred yards of where the group stood huddled. There was nothing for it but to seek the shelter of an ice hummock, and there await the passing of the storm.

"B'ys," he said to the few men who had gathered about him, and he shouted at the top of his voice, for the wind whisked low-spoken words away, "they's a hummock somewheres handy. Leave us get t' the lee of it."

"No, no!" several men exclaimed. "Leave us get on t' the rest o' the crew. 'Tis no use stayin' here."

"The path is lost, men," Bill cried. "You'll lose your way – you'll lose your lives!"

But they would not listen. They hurried forward, and were soon swallowed up by the night and snow. Bill o' Burnt Bay was left alone with Billy and Archie and a man named Osmond, who was a dull, heavy fellow.

"They's a hummock within a hundred yards o' here," Bill shouted. "I marked it afore the snow got thick. We must find it. 'Tis – "

"'Tis t' the left; 'tis over there," said Billy, pointing to the left. "I marked it well."

"Ay 'tis somewheres t' the left. Our only chance is t' find it. Now, listen well t' what I says. We must spread out. I'll start off. Archie, you follow me; keep sight o' me – keep just sight o' me, an' no more; but don't lose me, b'y, for your life. Osmond, you'll follow the b'y; an' be sure you watch him well. Billy, b'y, you'll follow Osmond. When we gets in line, we'll face t' the left an' go for'ard. The first t' see the hummock will signal the next man, an' he'll pass the word."

The three nodded their heads to signify their understanding of these directions.

"Osmond, don't lose sight o' this b'y," said Bill, impressively, placing his hand on Archie's shoulder. "D'you mind? Men," he went on, "if one loses sight o' the others, 'tis all up with us. Leave your pelt go. I'll take mine."

Shelter from that frosty wind was imperative in Archie's case. He made no complaint, for it was not in his nature to complain; but, strong to endure as he was, and stout as his spirit was, the cold, striking through the fur and wool about him, was having its inevitable effect.

When Bill moved off, dragging his burden of pelt, the boy calmly waited until the stalwart figure had been reduced to an outline; then, with heavy steps, but fixed purpose to acquit himself like a man, he followed, keeping his distance. Osmond came next. Young Billy had the exposed position – a station of honour in which he exulted – at the other end of the line.

Bill gave the signal, which was passed along by Archie to Osmond and by him to Billy, and they faced about and moved forward in the direction in which the hummock lay.

Archie searched the gloom for the gray shape of the hummock. It was a shelter – a mere relief. But how despairingly he searched for a sight of that formless heap of ice! Soon he began to stumble painfully. Once he lost sight of Bill o' Burnt Bay. Then he faltered, fell and could not rise. It was the watchful Bill who picked him up.

"What's this, b'y?" Bill asked, his voice shaking.

"I fell down," Archie answered, sharply. "That's all."

"I'll carry you, b'y," Bill began. "I'll carry you, if – "

Archie roughly pushed the man away. Then he stumbled forward, keeping his head up.

At that moment, Osmond, who was like a shadow to the right, gave the signal. So Bill knew that Billy, whom he could not see, had chanced upon the hummock. He caught Archie up in his arms, against the boy's protests and struggles, and ran with him to Osmond, and thence to Billy, all the time dragging his "tow."

When they reached the lee of the ice, Archie lay quietly in Bill's arms. He was about to fall asleep, as Bill perceived.

"Unlash the tow," Bill said, quickly, to Osmond, "an' start a fire."

With the help of Billy, Osmond took a pelt from the pack, and spread it on the ice.

"They's no wood," he said, stupidly.

"Take the cross-bar o' the tow line, dunderhead!" cried Billy. "Here! Leave me do it."

While Billy released the slender bar of wood from the end of the line, stuck it in the blubber and prepared to set fire to it, Bill was dealing with Archie's drowsiness. He shook the lad with all his strength, slapped him, shook him again, ran him hither and thither, and, at last, roused him to a sense of peril. The boy fought desperately to restore his circulation.

"'Tis ready t' light," Billy said to Bill.

"Leave me do it," Bill answered. "Keep movin', b'y," he cautioned Archie. "Don't you give up."

Give up? Not he! And Archie said so – mumbled it scornfully to Bill, and repeated it again and again to himself, until he was sick of the monotony of the words, but could not stop repeating them.

Neither Osmond nor Billy had matches, but Bill had a box in his waistcoat pocket. He shielded the contents from the wind and snow while he took one match out. Then he closed the box and handed it to Osmond to hold. It was well that he did not return it to his own pocket.

Archie was stumbling back and forth over the twenty yards of sheltered space. He had a great, shadowy realization of two duties: he must keep in motion, and he must keep out of the wind. All else had passed from his consciousness. At every turn, however, he unwittingly ventured further past the end of the hummock.

Twice the wind, the full force of which he could not resist, almost caught him. Then came a time when he had to summon his whole strength to tear himself from its clutch. He told himself he must not again pass beyond the lee of the ice. But, before he returned to that point, he had forgotten the danger.

A mighty gust laid hold on him, carried him off his feet, and swept him far out into the darkness.⁸ It chanced that Billy Topsail, who had kept an eye on Archie, caught sight of him as he fell.

"Archie!" the boy screamed.

"Archie?" cried Bill, looking up. "What – "

Archie had even then been carried out of sight. Billy leaped to his feet and followed. He gave himself to the same gust of wind, and, with difficulty keeping himself upright, was carried along with it. Bill grasped the situation in a flash. He, too, leaped up, and ran into the storm.

"Archie, b'y!" he cried. "Where is you? Oh, where is you, lad?" It was the first time in many years that heart's agony had wrung a cry from old Bill o' Burnt Bay.

Billy Topsail was carried swiftly along by the wind. It was clear to him that, should he diverge from the path of the gust, not only would he be unable to find the lost boy, but he himself would be in hopeless case. The wind swept him close upon Archie's track, but, as its force wasted, ever more slowly. He soon tripped over an obstruction, and plunged forward on his face. He recovered, and crawled back. There he came upon Archie, lying in a heap, half covered by a drift of snow.

"B'y," Billy shouted, "is you dead?"

Archie opened his eyes. Billy Topsail looked close, but could see no light of intelligence in them. He shook the boy violently.

"Wake up!" he cried. "Wake up!"

"What?" Archie responded, faintly.

Billy lifted him to his feet, but there was no strength in the lad's legs; he was limp as a drunken man. But this exertion restored Billy Topsail; he felt his own strength returning – a strength which the arduous toil of the coast had mightily developed.

"Stand up, b'y!" he shouted in Archie's ear. "Put your arm on my shoulder. I'll help you along."

"No," Archie muttered. But despite this protest he was lifted up; then he said: "Give me your hand. I'm all right."

Billy wasted no words. He locked his arms about Archie's middle, lifted him, and staggered forward against the wind.

The wind had fallen somewhat, and he made some progress. But the burden was heavy, and twice he fell. Then he heard Bill o' Burnt Bay's voice, and he shouted a response, but the wind carried the words away. He could hear Bill, who was to windward, but Bill could not hear him. So when the call came again, he marked the location and staggered in that direction.

"Oh, Billy! Oh, Archie!"

The voice was nearer – and to the left. Billy Topsail changed his course. The next cry came from the right again. Was the wind deceiving him? Or was Bill changing his place? Then came a ringing cry near at hand.

"Bill!" screamed Billy Topsail.

"Here! Where is you?"

Bill's great body emerged from the darkness. He cried out joyfully as he rushed forward, took Archie from Billy's arms, and slung him over his shoulder.

"Praise God!" he muttered tremulously, when he felt life stirring in the small body.

He put his face close to Billy Topsail's and looked steadily into the boy's eyes for an instant; and no words were needed to say what he meant.

But where was the hummock? Bill looked about.

"'Tis there," said Billy, pointing ahead.

Bill shook his head. His homing instinct, to which he had trusted his life in many a fog and night, told him otherwise. Reason entered into his decision not at all; he merely waited until he was persuaded that his face was turned in the right direction. Then he started off unhesitatingly. He had found the harbour entrance thus in many a thick summer night when his fishing punt rode a trackless sea.

"Take hold o' me jacket, b'y," he said to Billy. "Mind you stick close by me."

For some time they wandered without seeing any sign of the hummock. Bill's heart sank lower and lower; for he knew that if they did not soon find shelter, Archie would die in his arms. At last Bill caught sight of a light – a dull, glowing light.

"Is that a fire?" he asked.

"'Tis the hummock!" Billy cried. "'Tis Osmond with the fire goin'. 'Tis he! 'Tis he!"

"We're saved," said Bill.

Once in the lee of the hummock, they roused Archie from his stupor, and warmed him over the fire, which Osmond, after many failures, had succeeded in lighting. They broke the cross-piece of the tow line in two, took another pelt from the pack, and made two fires. The wood was like the wick in a candle; it blazed in the blubber, and was not consumed. Between the fires they huddled together, with Archie in the middle. Their bodies warmed the lad, and he slumbered snugly, quietly, through the night. Billy Topsail, more sturdy of body, if not of spirit, kept awake, and had a part in the talk with which each tried to cheer the others through the fearful, dragging hours.

"'Tis the day," said Bill, at last, pointing to the east.

The wind abated as the dawn advanced, and the snow ceased to fall. Light crept over the field, and men appeared from behind clumpers of ice. Group signalled to group. All made their way to the place where the ship had landed them, a dozen men were already clustered – a gaunt, haggard, frost-bitten crowd. The terrors of the night still oppressed them, and, through weeks, would haunt their dreams.

They counted their number. Fifty-nine living men were there; and there was one dead body – that of Tim Tuttle of Raggles Island, who had strayed away from his fellows and been lost. And thus they awaited the full break of day, while eyes were strained into the departing night. Where was the ship? Had she survived? These were the questions they asked one another.

"What's that patch o' black?" Bill o' Burnt Bay asked. "Due west, lads – a mile or more off?"

"Sure, it looks like the ship," some of the men agreed.

As the light increased, the storm passed on. A burst of sunshine at last revealed the Dictator, lying on the ice, listed far to port. The broken ice in which she had been caught, they learned afterwards, had been forced under her, and she had been lifted out of danger when the fields that nipped her came together.

When it is said that old Captain Hand welcomed his crew with open arms, and embraced Archie – the meanwhile searching through all his pockets for a handkerchief, which he could not find – there remains little to be told. He was more haggard than the rescued men. What depths his brave spirit sounded on that long night are not to be described.

"Well, b'y," was what he said to Archie, "you're back, is you?"

"Safe and sound, cap'n," the boy replied, wearily, "and hungry."

"Send the cook for'ard with the scoff!" roared the captain.

Before noon, all the men were safe aboard, and the ice was breaking up. When the Dictator settled softly into the water, at the parting of the fields, the pelt was stowed away. She had no difficulty in making the open sea; and thence she set forth in search of other floes and other seal packs.

The Dictator made Long Tom Harbour without mishap. There it was made known that the name of Billy Topsail of Ruddy Cove was "on the books," and not a man grumbled because the lad was to share with the rest. There, too, old John Roth, to whom two "white coats" had been promised, claimed the gift of Archie, and was not disappointed. And there Archie said good-bye to Billy for the time.

"I'll see you this summer," he said. "Don't forget, Billy. I'll spend a week of vacation time with you at Ruddy Cove."

"No," Billy replied. "You'll spend it at New Bay. Sure, me name is on the books, an' I'm goin' after lobsters with me own skiff in July."

"I'll go with you, if you'll take me," said Archie. "And I can never, never forget that you – "

"Sure," Billy Topsail interrupted, flushing, "you'll go with me t' New Bay. An' times we'll have of it!"

"Good-bye!"

"Good-bye, b'y!"

And so they parted on terms of perfect equality.

That summer, Billy Topsail went to New Bay. But it was not in a skiff; it was in a swift little sloop, especially made to be sailed by a crew of one. It came North, mysteriously, from St. John's, to the wonder of all Green Bay; and its name was Rescue. And a letter came North for Bill o' Burnt Bay: which, when he read it, stirred him to the profoundest depth of his rugged old heart, for he roared in a most unmannerly fashion that he'd "be busted if he'd take a thing for standin' by such a lad!" In reply to a second letter, however, Bill said he would "be willin' t' take it on credit, if he'd be 'lowed t' pay for it as he could." So that is how Bill o' Burnt Bay came to sail to the Labrador in his own fore-and-after, when the fish were running.

And, once, Sir Archibald Armstrong turned to his son. "Well, my boy," he said, slowly, "I've been wanting to ask you a question. What do you think of your shipmates?"

"I think they're heroes, every one!" Archie answered.

"Do you think you now know the difference between a man and a tailor's lay-figure?"

"Oh, sir," Archie laughed, "I'll never forget that!"

Billy Topsail had never needed to learn.