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CHAPTER VI. – "BACK WATER ALL! FOR LIFE, BOYS, FOR LIFE!"
It was summer-strange, weird, and silent summer in the Antarctic Ocean.
November was wearing to a close. The days were long and sunny; so long, indeed, that the sun did not trouble himself to go down at all. At midnight he just made a feint of doing so, and lowered himself towards the horizon, but thought better of it, and was speedily mounting higher and higher again every minute.
A great, cold-looking sun it was, however, a bright and almost rayless disc of whitest light, that you could look at and even count the spots thereon.
The good barque Flora M'Vayne was still ploughing her way through the dark waters of that southern ocean, and the great glacial barrier was still far away. They could have told this even by the paucity of bird life around them. A long-winged frigate-bird went swiftly across the hawse now and then, and soared away and away towards the few fleecy clouds that hovered high in air like puffs of gunpowder smoke.
That mighty eagle of the sea-the albatross-was also a constant visitor. What a wondrous flight is his! At one moment beating up to windward, tack and half-tack, yet with a speed almost as great as that of a swallow, till one can scarcely see him, so far and far away is he; then, wheeling next moment, down he flashes on the breeze, but more quickly than any ordinary breeze e'er blew. Not straight before the wind, however, but with a kind of sidelong rush which brings into full view the vast outspread of his wondrous wings.
They were still in the "roaring forties", as that part of the ocean 'twixt the latitude of the Cape and the fifties is called. But what a wide expanse of ocean is all around them! I have stood spell-bound on the fore or main-top, not admiring so much as adoring this mighty work of a mightier Creator: a turmoil of water, water, water in every direction one can look. And it is not so much the height of the waves one wonders at-though that is indeed vast-but their tremendous breadth, the sweep, as it were, between one curling comber and another. High and of fearful force are the seas in, for example, the Bay of Biscay during a gale, but they are mere channel chops to these. And wide though the expanse of these latter, they race each other round the world with an earnestness, and even fury, that causes one to stand aghast.
I wish I had space to describe some of the sunsets our heroes beheld shortly after leaving the last land. No wonder that Duncan more than once grasped Frank by the arm, and pointed northward and west at eventide.
"Look! Oh, look!"
It was all he could say. Yet the salt tears almost blinded him as he spoke.
"Oh, to be an artist!" exclaimed Frank once.
"An artist!" cried Duncan, almost scornfully. "What artist would dare to paint the golden gray and crimson splendour that unites both sea and sky into one living gorgeous whole? Oh, Frank, even Turner himself, were he here, would throw down his brush, and confess that he was a mere caricaturist."
But in a few weeks' time the sunsets were nil, and all, all was day.
Nor did it blow so high now.
Sometimes, indeed, the sea was as calm as a mill-pond, except where rippled in patches by huge shoals of the fry of certain kinds of fish that inhabit these seas.
And these were invariably followed by denizens of the deep that preyed upon them-dancing, leaping, cooing dolphins, for example.
Some of these latter were harpooned, and their dark red flesh made an excellent change of diet from the somewhat salt provisions, eggs, or penguin flesh.
Once or twice, while the weather was calm and the surface of the sea smooth and glassy, they came upon patches of yellow-banks they were, in fact, over which they were drifting.
Men were now kept constantly in the chains, and sometimes the danger was so great that the anchors were let go to wait for even the lightest breeze.
This might have delayed the voyage somewhat, but nevertheless it was not time wholly misspent, for where the bottom is near to the surface fish are always found in abundance. So boats would be lowered, and real good hand-line sport enjoyed.
In this old Pen participated. But the first day he started fishing he swam so fast and so far away, that those in the boat imagined they would never see him more.
Then little Johnnie began to weep.
"Oh, poll deah Pen! Oh, my ole mudder Sue," he cried. "He done gone away foh ebbermoh."
But Johnnie's "weeps" were quite a useless expenditure of lachrymal fluid. This was evident enough when Pen came racing back again with a great silvery fish held proudly aloft. He delivered this, and went back for another. And this again and again, till a breath of wind springing up, it was deemed advisable to return to the Flora, who was "titting" at her anchor as if eager to be on the wing again.
That Pen loved the darkie was evident enough, for one day, when bent on to his line and hauling away with all his might, a huge bonito pulled the little lad right overboard, the strange bird went grunting and squawking round him in terrible distress.
Johnnie's position just then was not an enviable one, for although he could swim like a herring, there was many a monster shark hovering near that would have been pleased indeed to make a meal of the boy.
These sharks were sometimes caught, and although their flesh had no great flavour, parts of it served sometimes to eke out breakfast or supper.
There are dangers innumerable in those Antarctic seas, and one of the most terrible is that of striking on a sand-bank or running foul of a sunken rock. These not being on the chart, the navigator has to sail along literally with his life in his hand, trusting all to blind chance. A bank does give some evidence before the ship gets on if there is an outlook in the foretop, and the cry of, "Below there! shoal water ahead!" is all too common. Next comes the shout of, "Ready about! Stand by tacks and sheets!"
But the rock hides its awful head and gives no sign. The ship strikes, then backward reels, and mayhap sinks before there is time to provision, water, arm, man, and lower the boats.
Ice at last.
But the Antarctic sea was wonderfully open this season, and the ice loose.
It lay in streams of small pieces at first, athwart the world, as Jack termed it; athwart the ship's course, at all events, so these they had to sail through. The good Flora was strong enough to negotiate them, but the battering and thumping along the vessel's sides, as heard below, was tremendous.
These ice streams became more and more numerous, and the pieces, or "berglets", got bigger and bigger, and, of course, more fraught with danger to the ship's vitality.
It grew appreciably colder too, but so slowly had they come into these regions of perpetual snow, that the change in temperature had no detrimental effect upon the health of either the officers or men.
It certainly had none on old Pen. In fact, the colder it got the more he seemed to like it. And now when waltzing with Johnnie, he used to sing in his own droll and dismal way.
Viking also believed in the cold, and the races and gambols he had up and down the deck, when he could induce anyone to throw a belaying-pin for him were wild in the extreme.
Moreover, he had a football, which Duncan had presented him with, and he got no end of fun out of this. He threw it in front of him, he hurled it along in front of him, and swung it about, and one day, when he fairly tossed it overboard, he made no bother about the matter, but rushing astern, jumped right overboard after it, quite regardless of the fact that the ship was going on at the rate of eight knots an hour.
As quickly as possible she was hove to and a whaler lowered.
Vike was found quite a quarter of a mile astern-but he had stuck to his ball.
He dearly loved it, and, strangely enough, he put it to bed every night as children do their dolls, covering it carefully up with a corner of the rug on which he slept.
—
Icebergs at last. A good thing it was for the Flora, that there was but little wind, for to strike against one of these huge bergs-bigger many of them were than St. Paul's Cathedral-would have meant certain destruction.
Yet although the wind was often but light, a current seemed to run rapidly enough, and the huge unbroken waves towered high above them, and more than once they narrowly escaped disaster from a huge berg being hurled down upon the vessel as if by Titanic force, as she wallowed in the trough of the sea.
Even sailing past to leeward of such ice as this took the wind for a time clean out of the sails.
Strangely enough, they reached the Antarctic Circle on Christmas day.
This was a sort of double event. Either would have been celebrated, but now both events must be rolled into one.
One would hardly imagine that King Christmas would venture into these lonely regions, but the old fellow is good-hearted, and where'er on earth a Briton goes there goes Christmas also.
Well, with the exception of Johnnie Shingles and the monkey-who, by the way, had been furnished with a brand-new scarlet flannel jacket to keep him cosy-there was not a soul on board who had not before leaving home been presented with a bunch of gay ribbons, by sweetheart or wife, to help to deck a great garland that was made, and hoisted high aloft and abaft on this auspicious morning.
Of course there were no turkeys!
Alas! there were no geese.
As for cooking an albatross-well, that has been tried before, and a more unsatisfactory dish I have never tasted. Fishy, oily, and as for downright toughness the wife of Beith with her iron teeth could make but a poor show in front of it.
But some splendid corn-beef took the place of more civilized dishes both fore and aft.
Then there was the pudding. Ah! that indeed!
And a splendid success this, or these, were. The cook went in that day for beating all previous records. And it was universally admitted that he did.
The Flora M'Vayne was an almost temperate ship, that is, the men had to content themselves with one glass of rum each per diem, man-o'-war fashion. But on this bright Christmas day there was but little limit or stint. Only, to everyone's credit be it said, there was no excess.
The evening, up till two bells (9 o'clock), was spent in games, in yarning, in dancing, and fun.
Both Vike and old Pen had dined right heartily, and were in rare form.
One of the chief dances to-night was the Scots strathspey and reel, and Duncan had got his bagpipes in order for the occasion, and as he played the fun grew fast and furious.
So excited did both Vike and Pen become at last that they must too chime in, the dog with a high falsetto howl, the bird with double grunt and squawk, so that Duncan's melody was somewhat interfered with.
This, however, did not discourage the Scotch portion of the crew. They only cracked their thumbs, danced the nimbler, and hooched the wilder, till with the frantic merriment the very sails did shiver.
It was indeed a joyous night. Vike and Pen, although they had a truly excellent feed, did not give way to excess, but the monkey being only one remove from a human being, ate so much pudding and so many nuts and cockroaches, that he suffered next morning from a violent headache. He was seen squatting on the capstan, clasping his brow with his left hand, and looking the very picture of Simian misery.
Frank took pity on him.
"I know what will cure you," he said. "I know what a Christmas headache is; I've been there myself."
So he bound up the poor beastie's head with a handkerchief wrung out of ice-cold water, and the monkey felt really better, and was grateful in consequence.
For some natural reason or another, they now came into a sea of open water, and much to the delight and excitement of all hands, sighted a school of Right whales.
The main-yard was instantly hauled aback, and all preparations speedily made to attack one at least of this great shoal.
I do not suppose that these leviathans of southern polar seas had ever had their gambols so rudely broken in upon before.
Three boats were sent against them, each with one experienced harpooner. The captain commanded one, Morgan another, and the third whaler was given in charge of brave young Duncan. To tell the truth, he had really no experience of such "fishing", but the spectioneer that sat beside him had.
Surely it was a pity to disturb the enjoyment of those great ungainly monsters on so glorious a day. Thus thought Conal at all events, for without doubt the whales had assembled for a real frolic.
It was a sort of whales' ball.
Sometimes nothing was seen but the white spray or foam they raised, at other times their enormous bodies were seen shining silvery in the summer sun, for in their glee they actively leapt over each other's backs.
But the noise they made is indescribable, as they lashed the water with flippers and tails.
In the captain's boat only was the harpoon gun, and he alone would fire it. When a much younger man he had been whaling in the far-off Arctic, and knew a Right whale from a finner or sperm.
Yet his was not the newest-fashioned mode of whaling. He used no explosive shells or bullets, which he looked upon as cruel in the extreme. I should be sorry indeed to argue the point either pro or con, for there is cruelty on both sides, but probably less with the shell, which may cause almost instantaneous death.
Was Captain Talbot going to attack that school of whales during their extraordinary gambols? He knew better. Were a whales' ball to take place in the midst of even a fleet of men-o'-war I should be sorry for some of the ships.
But see yonder, ploughing slowly along towards the herd, comes a huge and solitary leviathan.
Talbot hastily signals to the mate and to Duncan. The latter takes the steering oar, and, bidding him be cautious, the spectioneer, his great whale lance in his hand, goes cautiously forward to the bows, and the boat is kept on a line parallel to the great beast's course.
Nearer and nearer creeps the captain's boat. The excitement is intense. Will the whale dive before he gets close enough, the men are wondering?
Nearer and still more near.
Everyone holds his breath.
"Lie on your oars, men! Still and quiet!"
The boat drifts a little way further, but the gun is trained.
Bang!
The echoes reverberate from every berg, or far or near. The line all neatly coiled in the bows is whirling out, till the gunwale begins to fire. But it as speedily stops.
Grand shot! The monster is struck, and for a few seconds seems stunned, and lies still on the top of the water.
The school has dived and disappeared, to come up somewhere again miles and miles away.
And now the wounded whale recovers from the shot, and headlong dives, the line rushing out once again as before. Under way once again is the boat, but the leviathan now reappears as suddenly as he had sunk. Some instinct-whether of scent or hearing I cannot tell-causes him to take the same course as his fellows.
Mercy on us, how he rips and tears through the black-green water! But ever and anon he dives, and it is evident his exertions weary him a little.
And now the line is all run out, and the boat is taken in charge. The gunwale is cooled with hastily-drawn buckets of water, and forward she dashes, so quickly too that a wall of water stands up on each side of the bows.
The poor monster is in torment. The chief danger to the boat itself would lie in the beast swerving aside and diving under a berg, which would dash the brave whaler to pieces, and kill or drown every man on board. But he holds his course till, weary at last, he dives once more, and there remains for fully twenty minutes.
When he again appears the water around is red with his blood, but he moves along very slowly now, and the other boats with their lancemen get abreast and bear up to head him.
Duncan's is the first to get near enough, and now comes the tug of war. The whale is sick and weak.
The harpooner holds up a warning hand.
"Be all ready to back astern, boys!"
"Way enough!"
The lance is driven in full many and many a foot, and with one decisive twist a great and vital artery is severed.
"Back water all! For life, boys, for life!"
For life? Yes, but the men are as cool as if rowing in a regatta on the Thames.
"All speed astern!"
None too soon.
The blood spouts high as if from a fire-hose, but in awful jets, with every throb of the giant's heart. There is life in him yet, and while the red-drenched seamen pull well out of the way, he lashes the ocean's surface with his tremendous tail, one blow from which would stave in a torpedo-boat.
The sound would be heard miles and miles away, were there anyone to listen to it in these lonesome seas, and-so dies the leviathan.
The ship gets alongside and bends on her hooks in good time, and while the body is still hot and steaming, blubber and skin are hoisted up and up towards the yard-arms, till with its weight the vessel lists and lists, and it seems as if she would be on her beam-ends.
Long before the crew is done taking on board all that is valuable, the sharks have assembled, and are fighting and splashing as they gorge on their awful feast.
And when the decks are all clean once more, and the sails again filled, supper is had fore and aft, and then, but not till then, does Skipper Talbot order the steward to splice the main-brace.
CHAPTER VII. – "HERE'S TO THE LOVED ONES AT HOME."
Captain Talbot was a brave man, but the ice for the present looked far too dangerous to venture in through. So he kept "dodging" along the great barrier-edge or cruising eastwards, and away towards what is known as Enderby Land.
Sometimes he encountered a storm, brief but terrible, and dangerous in the extreme. They saw around them great bergs coming into collision, their green, towering, wall-like sides dashed together by the force of wind and waves; heard the thunder of the encounter, and witnessed the mist and foam as they fell to pieces in a chaos of boiling surf.
At times dense fog would envelop the whole sea, and then sail had to be taken in, for the icebergs went floating past and past like mysterious ghosts.
But clearer weather prevailed at last, and two more monster whales were captured.
Three great leviathans! Nearly a voyage in itself. No wonder that the spirits of the men rose higher and higher, as they thought of those who would press them to their hearts on their return home from this adventuresome cruise. And-happiest thought of all! – they would have plenty of money to spend on fathers or mothers, wives or children. For my experience is that so long as they are unallured by the drink demon, British sailors are not really improvident.
But the good luck of the Flora did not continue. Talbot had expected to find sea-elephants in great evidence in these regions.
They are so called, it will do you no harm to know, reader, first on account of their immense size and unwieldiness, many of the males attaining a length of twenty feet or over, and from the fact that they have a kind of proboscis which, when alarmed or angry, they inflate till it looks almost like the trunk of an elephant. They are dangerous then, and, though as a rule peaceable, can give a good account of anyone daring enough to attempt an attack upon them, armed with the spiked seal-club alone.
They usually, however, go further north during the spring or pupping season, but now having returned, they ought to have been about somewhere. But they had evidently chosen fresh ground, and Captain Talbot was unable to find a trace of them.
He was not easily cast down, however, and taking advantage of a splendid westerly and north-westerly wind, he daringly set every inch of canvas-remember it was the long Antarctic day-and flew eastwards on its wings.
But his object was not only to get a paying voyage, but to do some good also to science and to geographical knowledge as well.
It was the duty of Duncan himself, and of Frank as well, not only to keep a log, but to enter therein, along with the ship's sailings, adventures, &c., the temperature of air and water twice a day.
The vessel again appeared to imagine herself a clipper-built yacht and to fly along, and by good luck she not only had a fair wind, but a clear sea, having only now and then to steer away from floating icebergs.
But now and then a boat was lowered to pick up some unusual form of seal, that might be observed floating along on a morsel of snow-clad ice. So tame were these that they only gazed open-mouthed at the advancing boat, and thus fell an easy prey to the gunner.
Very few more Right whales were seen, and none captured.
For a time the course held was about east with a bit of northerly in it, then on reaching the sixties they bowled along in fine style, and in the first week in February they were daringly-far too daringly as it turned out-steering almost directly south through a comparatively open sea towards the great southern ice-barrier in the seventies, which lies east of a mighty volcanic hill well-named Erebus.
It was autumn now-early autumn in these regions, but still a delightful time.
Do not imagine that this distant ocean was uninhabited. Far from it. There were still millions on millions of birds about, that later on would fly far away to nor'land lands and islands. Petrels of many sorts, especially the snow-white species, Cape pigeons, the smaller penguins on point ends of land, and gulls of such beauty and rarity that it would have puzzled cleverer men than our heroes to classify them.
Many of these were carefully shot and made skins of, to be set up when they reached once more their dear native land, if God in his mercy should spare them.
—
Mount Sabine itself is passed, and soon after, to the east of that mountain, they lie for a day or two at Coulman Island. Strangely enough, though floating icebergs are heaving about all around, this rocky and storm-tossed isle is bare, and they can land.
The captain, with Frank and Conal, go off on a lichen hunt inland. They take their rifles with them, but no wild creature is here that can hurt them.
They find beautiful mosses, however, and strangely beautiful lichens. Indeed, some parts of the rising ground are crimson or orange with these latter, and the green of the mosses stand out in lovely and striking contrast.
They continued their journey far inland, and although the rocks and the sea all about the shore was alive with birds, here it was solemn and still enough. The scene was indeed impressive and beautiful, and with the blue of the sky above and the bright blue of the ocean beyond, dotted over with green and lofty snow-capped ice-blocks, the whole seemed a little world fresh from the hands of the great Creator of all.
Captain Talbot took specimens not only of the flora-if so I may call the scanty vegetation of this island-but of its rocks as well, and the height of its chief hills, with many soundings around it, to say nothing of collecting marine algæ.
All the way southwards, as far as the great ice-barrier to the eastward of the land wherein was Mount Terror, he was at the pains of surveying and charting out for the benefit of future generations, for as laid down in the charts that he possessed the coast was very indolently described indeed.
—
He was a very ambitious mariner, this skipper of the Flora M'Vayne, and at the same time a bold, daring, true-blue sailor.
Now would be the time, therefore, to make his great aërial journey still farther to the southward. But could such a thing be successfully accomplished? That was the question that he and he alone had to answer for himself. There was no one to consult.
And he took a whole long day to consider it, keeping himself very much alone in his state-room that he might come quietly to a correct conclusion.
Thus far to the south had he come with the intention of penetrating still farther by balloon. But he had calculated on getting here much sooner.
He had no intention of doing anything foolishly rash. Had he reached 75° south latitude when the summer was still in its prime he might have reckoned on perpetual sunshine and constant shifting of wind, but now the breeze blew mostly from the south, and although by rising into the higher regions he might get a fair wind if he descended one hundred miles nearer to the Antarctic Pole, was there any certainty that he should ever return? Indeed, it was the reverse. It seemed as though there was not the ghost of a chance of his ever seeing his ship again.
Life is sweet, and so at long last he gave up all thoughts of his aërial voyage for the present season.
He communicated this resolve to his mates and youngsters that day at dinner.
But the sun had already begun to set to the south'ard, though so brief was the night that scarce a star was even visible.
"We shall now," he told them, "bear up for the north and the west once more, and if we reach the lone isles of Kerguelen in time, we may yet fall among old sea-elephants enough to pay us handsomely. For though I have never been there, I am told that they make that lone region a habitat throughout the greater part of the year."
"And then we shall be homeward-bound, sha'n't we, sir?" said Frank.
"Yes," was the reply. "But I say, young fellow, you are not tired of a sailor's life, are you?"
"Oh no! I would like to see all-all the world first, and then return and dream of my wild adventures, and fight my battles with the stormy main o'er and o'er and o'er again."
"Bravo! lad, though you are just a little effusive. Well, you are pretty strong in wind and limb, Frank, aren't you?"
"Fairly, sir. I haven't got real Highland legs like Duncan there, but they've always served me well on a pinch."
"Well, as soon as we get into the neighbourhood of Mount Terror again I mean to make an ascent, and I shall want the assistance of all you young fellows, and a hand or two besides. There are scientific instruments to take along, besides plenty of food, drink, and sleeping-bags, for I guess it will take us the greater part of three days to accomplish the journey to the top and back.
"What is the height, sir?"
"It is said to be nearly eleven thousand feet high, and it is volcanic."
"Don't you think," said Morgan the mate, "that the adventure is almost foolhardy?"
"It is risky enough, I daresay; but really, Morgan, my dear fellow, I hate the idea of going back home without having accomplished something out of the common."
And so, after some further conversation of an after-dinner style, the ascent was determined on.
This was Saturday night, and as usual wives and sweethearts were toasted, for Captain Talbot was a man who dearly loved to keep up old customs.
So after a hearty supper of sea-pie the men got up a dance, Frank and the man who played the clarionet forming, as usual, the chief portion of the band.
Old Pen was in grand form to-night, and his antics, as he danced and whirled around with little Johnnie Shingles, were laughable in the extreme. It would be impossible to say that Pen tripped it-
"On the light fantastic toe".
For his feet were about as broad and flat as a couple of kippered herrings, but he made the best use of them he could, and no one could have done more.
After the dance the chief yarn-spinners assembled in a wide circle around the galley fire. Frank and Conal made two of the party, with noble Vike in the rear.
It hardly would have needed the rum that the cabin steward dealt out to make these good fellows happy to-night or to cause them to spin short yarns and sing, so jolly were they to know the ship was homeward bound-
"Across the foaming billows, boys,
Across the roaring sea,
"We'll all forget our hardships, lads,
With England on the lee".
But the crew of the brave Flora M'Vayne took their cue from the skipper, and never a Saturday night passed without many a song and many a toast, and always an original yarn of some adventure afloat or ashore. Sings Dibdin: -
"The moon on the ocean was dimmed by a ripple,
Affording a chequered delight;
The gay jolly tars passed the word for the tipple
And the toast-for 'twas Saturday night,
Some sweetheart or wife that he lov'd as his life,
Each drank, while he wished he could hail her,
But the standing toast that pleased the most was-
Here's the wind that blows and the ship that goes,
And the lass that loves a sailor!"
So thoroughly old-fashioned was Captain Talbot that on some Saturday nights he did not think it a bit beneath him to join his men around the fire, and they loved him all the better for it too.
Well, no matter how crowded the men might be of a night like this, there was always room left in the inner circle for Viking, old Pen, and Jim the monkey.
Jim, with his red jacket on, used to sit by Viking, looking very serious and very old, and combing the dog's coat with his long slender black fingers.
This was a kind of shampoo that invariably sent Vike off to sleep.
Then Jim would lie down alongside him, draw one great paw over his body, and go off to sleep also.
But old Pen would be very solemn indeed. He was troubled with cold feet, and it was really laughable enough to see him standing there on one leg while he held up and exposed his other great webbed pedal apparatus to the welcome glow emitted by the fire.
Sometimes yarns were at a discount, though songs never were, and no matter how simple, they were always welcome, even if told without any straining for effect and in ordinary conversational English, if they had truth in them.
On this particular Saturday night Captain Talbot came forward and took a seat in a corner to smoke his long pipe, while the steward brewed him a tumbler of punch with some cinnamon and butter in it, for the skipper had a cold.
"It's long since we've had a yarn from you, sir," remarked the carpenter.
The skipper took a drink, and then let his eyes follow the curling smoke from his pipe for a few seconds before replying.
"Well, Peters," he said, "I've had so many adventures in my time that I hardly ever know which to tell first. Once upon a time I served in a Royal Navy ship on the coast of Africa, and it is just the odour of the 'baccy, boys, that brings this little yarn to my mind."
