The Wreck of the Grosvenor. William Clark Russell
up the main-royal, and furl it!"
This was a beginning, and it was about time that a beginning was made. The breeze had freshened into a strong wind, this had grown into half a gale, and the look of the sky promised a whole gale before morning. The main-royal halliards were let go, and a couple of hands went up to stow the bit of canvas that was thumping among the clouds.
Presently, "Furl the fore and mizzen top-gallant sails."
This gave occupation to the watch; and now the decks began to grow lively with the figures of men running about, with songs and choruses, with cries of "Belay, there!"—"Up with it smartly, my lads!" and with the heavy flapping of canvas.
All this, however, was no very great reduction of sail. The Grosvenor carried the old-fashioned single topsails, and these immense spaces of canvas were holding a power of wind. Overhead the scud flew fast and furious, and all to windward the horizon was very thick. We took in the main-top-gallant sail; and while the hands were aloft we came up hand over fist with a big ship, painted white. She was to leeward, stretching away under double-reefed topsails, and showed out quite distinctly upon the dark sea beyond, and under the struggling moonshine. We ran close enough to take the wind out of her sails, and could easily have hailed her had there been any necessity to do so; but we could discern no one on deck but a single hand at the wheel. She showed no lights, and with her white hull and glimmering sails, and fragile naked yards and masts, she looked as ghostly as anything I ever saw on the water. She rolled and plunged solemnly among the seas, and threw up her own swirling outline in startling relief upon the foam she flung from her side, and which streamed away in pyramid-shape. She went astern like a buoy, and in a few minutes had vanished as utterly from our sight as if she had foundered.
I now stood waiting for an order which I knew must soon come. It is one thing to "carry on," but it is another thing to rip the masts out of a ship. I don't think we had lost half a knot in speed through the canvas that had been taken in: the vessel seemed to be running very nearly as fast as the seas. But the wind was not only increasing, but increasing with squalls, so that there were times when you would have thought that the inmates of forty mad-houses had got among the rigging and out upon the yards, and were screeching, yelling, and groaning with all the force they were master of.
At last the captain gave the order I awaited.
"All hands reef topsails."
In a few minutes the boatswain's pipe sounded, and the watch below came tumbling out of the forecastle. Now came a scene familiar to every man who has been to sea, whether as a sailor or a passenger. In a ship of war the crew go to work to the sound of fiddles or silver whistles; every man knows his station; everything is done quickly, quietly, and completely. But in a merchantman the men go to work to the sound of their own voices: these voices are, as a rule, uncommonly harsh and hoarse; and as every working party has its own solo and chorus, and as all working parties sing together, the effect upon the ear, to say the very least, is hideous. But also in a merchantman the crew is always less in number than they ought to be. Hence, when the halliards are let go, the confusion below and aloft becomes overwhelming; for not more, perhaps, than a couple of sails can be handled at a time, and, meanwhile, the others waiting to be furled are banged about by the wind, and fling such a thunder upon the ear that orders are scarce audible for the noise.
All this to a certain degree happened in the present instance. The captain having carried canvas with fool-hardy boldness, now ran into the other extreme. The quick fierce gusts which ran down upon the ship frightened him, and his order was to let go all three topsail halliards, and double-reef the sails. The halliards were easily let go; but then, the working hands being few, confusion must follow. The yards coming down upon the caps, the sails stood out in bellies hard as iron. A whole watch upon each reef-tackle could hardly bring the blocks together. When the mizzen-topsail was reefed, it was found that the fore-topsail would require all hands; the helm had to be put down to shake the sail, so as to enable the men to make the reef-points meet. The main-topsail lifted as well as the fore-topsail, and both sails rattled in unison; and the din of the pealing canvas, furiously shaken by the howling wind, the cries of the men getting the sail over to windward, the booming of the seas against the ship's bows, the groaning of her timbers, the excited grunting of terrified pigs, and the rumbling of an empty water-cask, which had broken from its lashings and was rolling to and fro the main-deck, constituted an uproar of which no description, however elaborate, could even faintly express the overwhelming character.
When the dawn broke it found the Grosvenor under reefed topsails, fore-topmast, staysail, foresail, main-trysail, and spanker, snug enough, but with streaming decks, for the gale had raised a heavy beam sea, and the deep-laden ship was sluggish, and took the water repeatedly over her weather-bulwarks.
The watch below had turned in again, but it was already seven bells, and at four o'clock my turn would come to go to bed. I had charge of the ship, for the captain having passed the night in observing his vessel's sailing powers under all canvas, had gone below, and I was not sorry to get rid of him, for his continued presence aft had become a nuisance to my eyes.
The sea under the gathering light in the east was a remarkable sight. The creaming arching surfaces of the waves took the pale illumination, but the troughs or hollows were livid, and looking along the rugged surface as the ship rose, one seemed to behold countless lines of yawning caverns opening in an illimitable waste of snow. Nothing could surpass the profound desolation of the scene surveyed in the faint struggling dawn, the pallid heaven, bearing its dim and languishing stars, over which were swept long lines of smoke-coloured clouds torn and mangled by the wind; the broken ocean pouring and boiling away to a melancholy horizon, still dark, save where the dawn was creeping upwards with its chilly light, and making the eastern sea and sky leaden-hued.
I had now leisure to recall the fatal accident I have related, and the inhumanity of Captain Coxon's comment upon it. I hugged myself in my thick coat as I looked astern at the cold and rushing waters, and thought of the bitter sudden deaths of the unfortunates we had run down. With what appalling rapidity had the whole thing happened! not even a dying shriek had been heard amid the roar of the wind among the masts. For many a day the memory of that dark-coloured sail, prone upon the foaming water, haunted me. The significance of it was awful to think upon. But for the men on the look-out, never a soul among us would have known that living beings had been hurled into sudden and dreadful death, that the ship in which we sailed had perchance made widows of sleeping wives, had made children fatherless, and that ruin and beggary and sorrow had been churned up out of the deep by our unsparing bows.
Our voyage had begun inauspiciously enough, God knows: and as I looked towards the east where the morning light was kindling over the livid, rugged horizon, a strange depression fell upon my spirits, and the presentiment then entered my mind and never afterwards quitted it, that perils and suffering and death were in store for us, and that when I had looked on the English coast last night I was unconsciously bidding farewell to scenes I should never behold again.
CHAPTER V.
I was on deck again at eight o'clock. It was still blowing a gale, but the wind had drawn right aft, and though the topsails were kept reefed, Duckling had thought fit to set the main top-gallant sail, and the ship was running bravely.
Yet, though her speed was good, she was rolling abominably; for the wind had not had time to change the course of the waves, and we had now all the disadvantage of a beam sea without the modifying influence over the ship's rolling of a beam wind.
I reckoned that we had made over one hundred and thirty knots during the twelve hours, so that if the gale lasted, we might hope to be clear of the Scilly Isles by next morning. There was a small screw steamer crossing our bows right ahead, possibly hailing from France and bound to the Bristol Channel. I watched her through a glass, sometimes breathlessly, for in all my life I never saw any vessel pitch as she did, and live. Sometimes she seemed to stand clear out of water so as to look all hull: then down she would go and leave nothing showing but a bit of her funnel sticking