Wild Adventures round the Pole

Chapter Six.

A Life on the Ocean Wave – On the Rocks – Mystery – A Home on the Rolling Deep

Has the reader ever been to sea? The first feeling that a landsman objects to at sea is that of the heaving motion of the ship; to your true sailor the cessation of that motion, or its absence under circumstances, is disagreeable in the extreme. To me there is always a certain air of romance about the old ocean, and about a ship at sea; but what can be less romantic than lying in a harbour or dull wet dock, with no more life nor motion in your craft than there is in the slopshop round the corner? To lie thus and probably have to listen to the grating voices and pointless jokes of semi-inebriated stevedores, as they load or unload, soiling, as they do, your beautiful decks with their dreadful boots, is very far from pleasant. In a case like this how one wishes to be away out on the blue water once more, and to feel life in the good ship once again – to feel, as it were, her very heart throb beneath one’s feet!

But disagreeable as the sensation is of lying lifeless in harbour or dock, still more so is it to feel your vessel, that one moment before was sailing peacefully over the sea, suddenly rasp on a rock beneath you, then stop dead. Nothing in the world will wake a sailor sooner, even should he be in the deepest of slumber, than this sudden cessation of motion. I remember on one particular occasion being awakened thus. No crew ever went to sleep with a greater feeling of security than we had done, for the night was fine and the ship went well. But all at once, about four bells in the middle watch, —

Kurr-r-r-r! that was the noise we heard proceeding from our keel, then all was steady, all was still. And every man sprang from his hammock, every officer from his cot.

We were in the middle of the Indian Ocean, or rather the Mozambique Channel, with no land in sight, and we were hard and fast on the dreaded Lyra reef. A beautiful night it was, just enough wind to make a ripple on the water for the broad moon’s beams to dance in, a cloudless sky, and countless stars. We took all this in at the first glance. Safe enough we were – for the time; but if the wind rose there was the certainty of our being broken up, even as the war-ship Lyra was, that gave its name to the reef.

At the first shout from the man on the outlook in the Arrandoon, McBain rushed on deck. “Stand by both anchors. Ready about.” But these orders are, alas! too late. Kurr-r-r-r! The stately Arrandoon is hard and fast on the rocky bottom.

The ship was under easy sail, for although there was hardly any wind, what little there was gave evident signs of shifting. It might come on to blow, and blow pretty hard, too, from the south-east or east-south-east, and Mr Stevenson was hardly the man to be caught in a trap, to find himself on a lee shore or a rock-bound coast, with a crowd of canvas. Well for our people it was that there was but little sail on her and little wind, or, speedily as everything was let go, the masts – some of them at least – would have gone by the board.

Half an hour after she struck, the Arrandoon was under bare poles and steam was up.

The order had been given to get up steam with all speed. Both the engineer and his two assistants were brawny Scots.

“Man!” said the former, “it’ll take ye a whole hour to get up steam if you bother wi’ coals and cinders alone. But do your best wi’ what ye hae till I come back.”

He wasn’t gone long ere he came staggering down the ladder again, carrying a sack.

“It’s American hams,” he said; “they’re hardly fit for anything else but fuel, so here goes.”

And he popped a couple into the fire.

“That’s the style,” he said, as they began to frizzle and blaze. “Look, lads, the kettle’ll be boilin’ in twa seconds.”

“Thank you, Stuart,” said McBain, when the engineer went on the bridge to report everything ready; “you are a valuable servant; now stand by to receive orders.”

All hands had been called, and there was certainly plenty for them to do.

It wanted several hours to high-water, and McBain determined to make the best of his time.

“By the blessing of Providence on our own exertions, Stevenson,” the captain said, “we’ll get her off all right. Had it been high-water, though, when we ran on shore, eh!”

Stevenson laughed a grim laugh. “We’d leave her bones here,” he said, “that would be all.”

The men were now getting their big guns over the side into the boats. This would lighten her a little. But as the tide was flowing, anchors were sent out astern, to prevent the ship from being carried still farther on to the reef.

“Go astern at full speed.”

The screws revolved and kept on revolving, the ship still stuck fast. The night was very dark, so that everything had to be done by the weird light of lanterns. Never mind, the work went cheerily on, and the men sang as they laboured.

“High-water about half-past two, isn’t it, Stevenson?” asked Captain McBain.

“Yes, sir,” the mate replied, “that’s about the time, sir.”

“Ah! well,” the captain said, “she is sure to float then, and there are no signs of your storm coming.”

“There is hardly a breath of wind now, sir, but you never know in these latitudes where it may come on to blow from next.”

The cheerful way in which McBain talked reassured our heroes, and towards eleven o’clock English Ralph spoke as follows, —

“Look here, boys – ”

“There isn’t a bit of good looking in the dark, is there?” said Allan.

“Well,” continued Ralph, “figuratively speaking, look here; I don’t see the good of sticking up on deck in the cold. We’re not doing an atom of good; let us go below and finish our supper.”

“Right,” said Allan; “and mind you, that poor girl is below there all this time. She may want some refreshment.”

When they entered the saloon they found it empty, deserted as far as human beings were concerned. Polly the cockatoo was there, no one else.

“Well?” said the bird, inquiringly, as she helped herself to an enormous mouthful of hemp-seed. “Well?”

“What have you done with the young lady?” asked Allan.

“The proof o’ the pudding – ”

Polly was too busy eating to say more. Peter the steward entered just then, overhearing the question as he came.

“That strange girl, sir,” he replied, “went over the side and away in her boat as soon as the ship struck.”

“Well, I call that a pity,” said Allan; “the poor girl comes here to warn us of danger and never stops for thanks. It is wonderful.”

“From this date,” remarked Ralph, “I cease to wonder at anything. Steward, you know we were only half done with supper, and we’re all as hungry as hunters, and – ”

But Peter was off, and in a few minutes our boys were supping as quietly and contentedly as if they had been in the Coffee-room of the Queen’s Hotel, Glasgow, instead of being on a lee shore, with the certainty that if it came on to blow not a timber of the good ship Arrandoon that would not be smashed into matchwood.

But hark! the noise on deck recommences, the men are heaving on the winch, the engines are once more at work, and the great screw is revolving. Then there is a shout from the men forward.

“She moves!”

“Hurrah! then, boys, hurrah!” cried McBain; “heave, and she goes.”

(The word “hurrah” in the parlance of North Sea sailors means “do your utmost” or “make all speed.”)

The men burst into song – tune a wild, uncouth sailor’s melody, words extempore, one man singing one line, another metreing it with a second, with a chorus between each line, in which all joined, with all their strength of voice to the tune, with all the power of their brawny muscles to the winch. Mere doggerel, but it did the turn better, perhaps, than more refined music would have done.

“We’re off,” cried Stevenson, excitedly. “Hurrah! men. Hurrah! hurrah! hurrah!”

The men needed but little encouragement now, though. Round went the winch right merrily, and in a quarter of an hour the bows were abreast of the anchors.

“Now, steward,” said the captain, “splice the main-brace.”

The ration was brought and served, Ted Wilson, who was a moving spirit in the ’tween decks, giving a toast, which every man re-echoed ere he raised the basin to his head, —

“Success to the saucy Arrandoon, and our bold skipper, Captain McBain.”

The vessel’s head was now turned seawards, and presently the anchors that had been taken in were let go again, and fires banked. The long night wore away, and the dismal dawn came. McBain had lain down for a short time, with orders to be roused on the first appearance of daylight. Rory, anxious to see how the land looked, was on deck nearly as soon as the captain.

A grey mist was lifting up from off the sea, and from off the shore, revealing black, beetling crags, hundreds of feet high at the water’s edge, a sheer beetling cliff around which thousands of strange sea-birds were wheeling and screaming, their white wings relieved against the black of the rocks, on which rows on rows of solemn-looking guillemots sat, and lines of those strange old-fashion-faced birds, the puffins.

The cliffs were snow-clad, the hills above were terraced with rocks almost to their summits. Between the ship and this inhospitable shore lay a long, dangerous-looking reef of rocks.

“Ah! Rory,” said McBain, “there was a merciful Providence watching over us last night. Yonder is where we lay; had it come on to blow, not one of us would be alive this morning to see the sun rise.”

Rory could hardly help, shuddering as he thought of the narrow escape they had had from so terrible a fate.

When steam was got up they went round the island – it was one of the most southerly of the Faroes; but except around one little bay, where boats might land with difficulty, it seemed impossible that human beings could exist in such a place. What, then, was the mystery of the previous evening, of the fair-haired girl, of the lights inside the reef that simulated those of a broad-beamed ship, of the lights like those of a village that twinkled on shore? The whole affair seemed strange, inexplicable. Now that it was broad daylight the events of the preceding night, with its dangers and its darkness, had more the similitude of some dreadful dream than a stern reality.

This same evening the anchor was let go in the Bay of Thorshaven, the capital – city, shall I say? – of the Faroe Islands. I am writing a tale of adventure, not a narrative of travel, else would I willingly devote a whole chapter to a description of this quaint and primitive wee, wee town. Our heroes saw it at its very worst, its very bleakest, for winter still held it in thrall; the turf-clad roofs of its cottages, that in summer are green with grass and redolent of wild thyme, were now clad with snow; its streets, difficult to climb even in July, were now stairs of glass; its fort looked frozen out; and its little chapel, where Sunday after Sunday the hardy and brave inhabitants, who never move abroad without their lives in their hands, worship God in all humility – this little chapel stood up black and bold against its background of snow.

Although the streamlets were all frozen, although ice was afloat in the bay, and a grey and leaden sky overhead, our boys were not sorry to land and have a look around. To say that they were hospitably received would be hardly doing the Faroese justice, for hospitality really seems a part and parcel of the people’s religion. The viands they placed before them were well cooked, but curious, to say the least of it. Steak of young whale, stew of young seal’s liver, roast guillemot and baked auk; these may sound queer as dinner dishes, but as they were cooked by the ancient Faroese gentleman who entertained our heroes at his house, each and all of them were brave eating.

Couldn’t they stop a month? this gentleman, who looked like a true descendant of some ancient viking, asked McBain. Well then, a fortnight? well, surely one short week?

But, “Nay, nay, nay,” the captain answered, kindly and smilingly, to all his entreaties; they must hurry on to the far north ere spring and summer came.

The Faroese could give them no clue to the mystery that shrouded the previous night. They had never heard of either wreckers or pirates in these peaceful islands.

“But,” said the old viking, “we are willing to turn out to a man; we are one thousand inhabitants in all – including the women; but even they will go; and we have ten brave, real soldiers in the fort, they too will go, and we will make search, and if we find them we will hang them on – on – ” the old man hesitated.

“On the nearest tree,” suggested Rory with a mischievous smile.

The viking laughed grimly at the joke.

“Well,” he said, “we will hang them anyhow, trees or no trees.”

But McBain could not be induced to deviate from his set purpose, and bidding these simple folk a friendly farewell, they steamed once more out of the bay, passed many a strange, fantastic island, passed rocks pierced with caves, and bird-haunted, and so, with the vessel’s prow pointing to the northward and west, they left the Faroes far behind them.

Tremendous seas rolled in from the broad Atlantic all that night and all next day, little wind though, and no broken water. In the evening, in the dog-watch, the waves seemed to increase in size; they were miles long, mountains high; when down in the trough of the sea you had to look up to their crests as you would to the summer’s sun at noontide. Indeed, those waves made the brave ship Arrandoon look wondrous small.

McBain, somewhat to Stevenson’s astonishment, made the man at the wheel steer directly north.

“We’re out of our course, sir,” said the mate.

“Pardon me for a minute or two,” replied the captain, half apologetically, “we are now broadside on to these seas, I just want to test her stability.”

“Well, everything is pretty fast, sir,” said the mate, quietly; “but if the ship goes on her beam-ends don’t blame me.”

“Perhaps, Mr Stevenson, there wouldn’t be much time to blame any one; but I can trust my ship, I think. Wo! my beauty.”

The beauty didn’t seem a bit inclined to “wo!” however. She positively rolled her ports under, and Rory confessed that the doldrums were nothing to this.

Presently up comes Rory from below.

“Och! captain dear,” he says, “my gun-case has burst my fiddle-case, and I’m not sure that the fiddle herself is safe, the darling.”

Next up comes Stevenson. “Please captain,” he says, “the steward says his crockery is all going to smithereens, and the cook can’t keep the fire in the galley range, and Freezing Powders has broken the tureen and spilt the soup, and – ”

“Enough, enough,” cried McBain, laughing; “take charge, mate, and do as you like with her, I’m satisfied.”

So down below dived the captain, the ship’s head was once more turned north-west, and a bit of canvas clapped on to steady her.

Chapter Seven.

Sandie McFlail, M.D. – “Wha Wouldna’ be a Sea-Bird?” – The Girl Tells Her Strange Adventures – Nightfall on the Sea

There is one member of the mess whom I have not yet introduced, but a very worthy member he is, our youthful doctor. Poor fellow! never before had he been to sea, and so he suffered accordingly. Oh! right bravely had he tried to keep up for all that. He was the boldest mariner afloat while coming down the Clyde; he disappeared as the ship began to round the stormy Mull. He appeared again for a short time at Oban, but vanished when the anchor was weighed. At Lerwick, where they called in to take old Magnus Bolt on board, and ship a dozen stalwart Shetlanders, the doctor was once more seen on deck; and it was currently reported that when the vessel lay helpless on the reef, a ghostly form bearing a strong resemblance to the bold surgeon was seen flitting about in the darkness, and a quavering voice was heard to put this solemn question more than once, “Any danger, men? Men, are we in danger?” This was the last that had been seen of the medico; but Rory found a slate in the dispensary, into which sanctum, by the way, he had no right to pop even his nose. He brought this slate aft, the young rascal, and read what was written thereon to Allan and Ralph, from which it was quite evident that Sandie McFlail, M.D., of Aberdeen, had made a most intrepid attempt to keep a diary. The entries were short, and ran somewhat thus: —

“February 9th. – Dropped away from the Broomielaw and steamed down the beautiful Clyde. Charming day, though cold, and the hills on each side the river clothed in virgin snow. Felt sad and sorrowful at leaving my native land. I wonder will ever we return, or will the great sea swallow us up? Would rather it didn’t. I wonder if she will think of me and pray for her mariner bold when the wind blows high at night, when the cold rain beats against the window-panes of her little cot, and the storm spirit roars around the old chimneys. I feel a sailor already all over, and I tread the decks with pride.

“Feb. 10th. – At sea. The ocean getting rough. Passed some seagulls.

“Feb. 11th. – Sea rougher. Passed a ship.

“Feb. 12th. – Sea still rough. Passed some seaweed.

“Feb. 13th. – Sea mountains high. Passed – ”

“And here,” says Rory, “the diary breaks off all of a sudden like; and all of a sudden the entries close; so, really, there is no saying what the doctor passed on the 13th. But just about this time, the mate tells me, he was seen leaning languidly over the side, so – ”

“Ho, ho!” cried McBain, close at his ear. The captain had entered the saloon unperceived by boy Rory, and had been standing behind him all the time he was reading. Ralph and Allan saw him well enough, but they, of course, said nothing, although they could not refrain from laughing.

“Ho, ho, Rory, my boy!” says McBain; “ho, ho, boy Rory! so you’re fairly caught?”

“And indeed then,” says Rory, jumping up and looking as guilty as any schoolboy, “I didn’t know you were there at all at all.”

“Of that I am perfectly sure,” McBain says, laughing, “else you wouldn’t have been reading the poor doctor’s private diary. What shall we do with him, Ralph? What shall he be done to, Allan?”

“Oh!” said Ralph, mischievously; “send him to the masthead for a couple of hours. Into the foretop, mind, where he’ll get plenty of air about him.”

“No,” said Allan, grinning; “give him a seat for three hours on the end of the bowsprit. Of course, Captain McBain, you’ll let him have a bottle of hot water at his feet, and a blanket or two about him. He is only a little one, you know.”

“But now that I think of it,” said McBain, “you are all the same, boys; there isn’t one of you a whit better than the other.”

“Sure and you’re right, captain,” Rory put in, “for if I was reading, they were listening, most intently, too.”

“Well then, boys, I’ll tell you how you can make amends to the honest doctor. Off you go, the three of you, and see if you can’t rouse him out. Get him to come on deck and breathe the fresh air. He’ll soon get round.”

And off our three heroes went, joyfully, on their mission of mercy.

They found the worthy doctor in bed in his cabin, and forthwith set about kindly but firmly rousing him out. They had even brought Freezing Powders with them, to carry a pint of moselle.

“I feel vera limp,” said Sandie, as soon as he got dressed, “vera limp indeed. Well, as you say, the moselle may do me good, but I’m a teetotaler as a rule.”

“We never touch any wine,” said Ralph, “nor care to; but this, my dear doctor, is medicine.”

Sandie confessed himself better immediately when he got on deck. With Allan on one side of him and big Ralph on the other, he was marched up and down the deck for half an hour and more.