Part 36 (1/2)
Captain Kettle, being human, had greatly needed some one during the last half-hour to ease his feelings on--though he was not the man to own up to such a weakness, even to himself--and the boat came neatly to supply his want. It was long enough since he had found occasion for such an outburst, but the perfection of his early training stood him in good stead then. Every biting insult in his vocabulary, every las.h.i.+ng word that is used upon the seas, every gibe, national, personal, or professional, that a lifetime of hard language could teach, he poured out on that s.h.i.+vering boat's crew then.
They were Germans certainly, but being an English s.h.i.+pmaster, he had, of course, many a time sailed with a forecastle filled with their nationality, and had acquired the special art of adapting his abuse to the ”Dutchman's” sensibilities, even as he had other harangues suited for Coolie or Dago mariners, or even for that rare sea-bird, the English sailorman. And as a final wind-up, after having made them writhe sufficiently, he ordered them to go back whence they came, and take a share in rescuing their fellows.
”Bud we shall trown,” shouted back one speaker from the wildly jumping boat.
”Then drown, and be hanged to you,” shouted Kettle. ”I'm sure I don't care if you do. But I'm not going to have cowards like you dirtying my deck-planks.” He cast off the line to which their boat rode under the steamer's heaving side. ”You go and do your whack at getting the people off that packet, or, so help me James! none of you shall ever see your happy Dutchland again.”
Meanwhile, so the irony of the fates ordered it, the two mates, each in charge of one of the _Flamingo's_ lifeboats, were commanding crews made up entirely of Germans and Scandinavians, and pluckier and more careful sailormen could not have been wished for. The work was dangerous, and required more than ordinary nerve and endurance and skill. A heavy sea ran, and from its crests a spindrift blew which cut the face like whips, and numbed all parts of the body with its chill. The boats were tossed about like playthings, and required constant bailing to keep them from being waterlogged. But Kettle had brought the _Flamingo_ to windward of the _Grosser Carl_, and each boat carried a line, so that the steam winches could help her with the return trips.
Getting a cargo was, however, the chief difficulty. All attempt at killing the fire was given up by this time. All vestige of order was swamped in unutterable panic. The people on board had given themselves up to wild, uncontrollable anarchy. If a boat had been brought alongside, they would have tumbled into her like sheep, till their numbers swamped her. They cursed the flames, cursed the sea, cursed their own brothers and sisters who jostled them. They were the sweepings from half-fed middle Europe, born with raw nerves; and under the sudden stress of danger, and the absence of some strong man to thrust discipline on them, they became practically maniacs. They were beyond speech, many of them. They yammered at the boats which came to their relief, with noises like those of scared beasts.
Now the _Flamingo's_ boats were officered by two cool, profane mates, who had no nerves themselves, and did not see the use of nerves in other people. Neither of them spoke German, but (after the style of their island) presuming that some of those who listened would understand English, they made proclamation in their own tongue to the effect that the women were to be taken off first.
”Kids with them,” added the second mate.
”And if any of you rats of men shove your way down here,” said the chief mate, ”before all the skirt is ferried across, you'll get knocked on the head, that's all. Savvy that belaying-pin I got in my fist? Now then, get some bowlines, and sway out the ladies.”
As well might the order have been addressed to a flock of sheep. They heard what was said in an agonized silence. Then each poor soul there stretched out his arms or hers, and clamored to be saved--and--never mind the rest. And meanwhile the flames bit deeper and deeper into the fabric of the steamer, and the breath of them grew more searching, as the roaring gale blew them into strength.
”You ruddy Dutchmen,” shouted the second mate. ”It would serve you blooming well right if you were left to be frizzled up into one big sausage stew together. However, we'll see if kindness can't tame you a bit yet.” He waited till the swirl of a sea swung his boat under one of the dangling davit falls, and caught hold of it, and climbed nimbly on board. Then he proceeded to clear a s.p.a.ce by the primitive method of cras.h.i.+ng his fist into every face within reach.
”Now then,” he shouted, ”if there are any sailormen here worth their salt, let them come and help. Am I to break up the whole of this s.h.i.+p's company by myself?”
Gradually, by ones and twos, the _Grosser Carl's_ remaining officers and deck hands came shamefacedly toward this new nucleus of authority and order, and then the real work began. The emigrants, with sea sights and sea usage new to them, were still full of the unreasoning panic of cattle, and like cattle they were herded and handled, and their women and young cut out from the general mob. These last were got into the swaying, dancing boats as tenderly as might be, and the men were bidden to watch, and wait their turn. When they grew restive, as the scorching fire drew more near, they were beaten savagely; the _Grosser Carl's_ crew, with the shame of their own panic still raw on them, knew no mercy; and the second mate of the _Flamingo_, who stood against a davit, insulted them all with impartial cheerfulness. He was a very apt pupil, this young man, of that master of ruling men at the expense of their feelings, Captain Owen Kettle.
Meanwhile the two lifeboats took one risky journey after another, being drawn up to their own s.h.i.+p by a chattering winch, discharging their draggled freight with dexterity and little ceremony, and then laboring back under oars for another. The light of the burning steamer turned a great sphere of night into day, and the heat from her made the sweat pour down the faces of the toiling men, though the gale still roared, and the icy spindrift still whipped and stung. On the _Flamingo_, Captain Kettle cast into the sea with a free hand what represented the savings of a lifetime, provision for his wife and children, and an old-age pension for himself.
The _Grosser Carl_ had carried thirty first-cla.s.s pa.s.sengers, and these were crammed into the _Flamingo's_ slender cabin accommodation, filling it to overflowing. The emigrants--Austrians, Bohemians, wild Poles, filthy, crawling Russian Jews, b.e.s.t.i.a.l Armenians, human _debris_ which even soldier-coveting Middle Europe rejected--these were herded down into the holds, as rich cargo was dug out by the straining winches, and given to the thankless sea to make s.p.a.ce for them.
”Kindly walk up,” said Kettle, with bitter hospitality, as fresh flocks of them were heaved up over the bulwarks. ”Don't hesitate to grumble if the accommodation isn't exactly to your liking. We're most pleased to strike out cargo to provide you with an elegant parlor, and what's left I'm sure you'll be able to sit on and spoil. Oh, you filthy, long-haired cattle! Did none of you ever wash?”
Fiercely the _Grosser Carl_ burned to the fanning of the gale, and like furies worked the men in the boats. The _Grosser Carl's_ own boat joined the other two, once the ferrying was well under way. She had hung alongside after Kettle cast off her line, with her people madly clamoring to be taken on board; but as all they received for their pains was abuse and coal-lumps--mostly, by the way, from their own fellow-countrymen, who made up the majority of the _Flamingo's_ crew--they were presently driven to help in the salving work through sheer scare at being left behind to drown unless they carried out the fierce little English Captain's orders.
The _Flamingo's_ chief mate oversaw the dangerous ferrying, and though every soul that was transs.h.i.+pped might be said to have had ten narrow escapes in transit over that piece of tossing water, luck and good seamans.h.i.+p carried the day, and none was lost. And on the _Grosser Carl_ the second mate, a stronger man, brazenly took entire command, and commended to the nether G.o.ds all who suggested ousting him from that position. ”I don't care a red what your official post was on this s.h.i.+p before I came,” said the second mate to several indignant officers. ”You should have held on to it when you had it. I've never been a skipper before, but I'm skipper here now by sheer right of conquest, and I'm going to stay on at that till the blooming old s.h.i.+p's burnt out. If you bother me, I'll knock your silly nose into your watch-pocket. Turn-to there and pa.s.s down another batch of those squalling pa.s.sengers into the boats. Don't you spill any of them overboard either, or, by the Big Mischief, I'll just step down and teach you handiness.”
The second mate was almost fainting with the heat before he left the _Grosser Carl_, but he insisted on being the last man on board, and then guyed the whole performance with caustic gayety when he was dragged out of the water, into which he had been forced to jump, and was set to drain on the floor gratings of a boat.
The _Grosser Carl_ had fallen away before the wind, and was spouting flame from stem-head to p.o.o.p-staff by the time the last of the rescuers and the rescued were put on the _Flamingo's_ deck, and on that travel-worn steamboat were some six hundred and fifty visitors that somehow or other had to be provided for.
The detail of famine now became of next importance. They were still five days' steam away from port, and their official provision supply was only calculated to last the _Flamingos_ themselves for a little over that time. Things are cut pretty fine in these days of steam voyages to scheduled time. So there was no sentimental waiting to see the _Grosser Carl_ finally burn out and sink. The boats were cast adrift, as the crews were too exhausted to hoist them in, and the _Flamingo's_ nose was turned toward Liverpool. Pratt, the chief engineer, figured out to half a ton what coal he had remaining, and set the pace so as to run in with empty bunkers. They were cool now, all hands, from the excitement of the burning s.h.i.+p, and the objectionable prospect of semi-starvation made them regard their visitors less than ever in the light of men and brothers.
But, as it chanced, toward the evening of next day, a hurrying ocean greyhound overtook them in her race from New York toward the East, and the bunting talked out long sentences in the commercial code from the wire span between the _Flamingo's_ masts. Fresh quartettes of flags flicked up on both steamers, were acknowledged, and were replaced by others; and when the liner drew up alongside, and stopped with reversed propellers, she had a loaded boat ready swung out in davits, which dropped in the water the moment she had lost her way. The bunting had told the pith of the tale.
When the two steamers' bridges were level, the liner's captain touched his cap, and a crowd of well-dressed pa.s.sengers below him listened wonderingly. ”Afternoon, Captain. Got 'em all?”
”Afternoon, Captain. Oh, we didn't lose any. But a few drowned their silly selves before we started to shepherd them.”
”What s.h.i.+p was it? The French boat would be hardly due yet.”
”No, the old _Grosser Carl_. She was astern of her time. Much obliged to you for the grub, Captain. We'd have been pretty hard pushed if we hadn't met you. I'm sending you a payment order. Sorry for spoiling your pa.s.sage.”