Part 35 (1/2)
But others were soon to follow, for the swell under the ice increased, the bergs all around them rolled higher and higher. The noise from the pack was terrific, as the pieces met and clashed and ground their slippery sides together. In an hour or two the bay ice had been either ground to slush, or piled in packs on top of the bergs, so that the bergs had freedom to fight, as it were. Alas! for the two s.h.i.+ps that happened to be between the combatants. Their position was, indeed, far from an enviable one. Hardly had an hour elapsed ere the ice-harbours McBain and Silas had prided themselves in, were wrecked and disintegrated. They were then, in some measure, at the mercy of the enemy, that pressed them closely on every quarter. The _Canny Scotia_ was the worst off--she lay between two of the biggest bergs in the pack.
McBain came to his a.s.sistance with torpedoes. He might as well have tried to blow them to pieces with a child's pop-gun. Better, in fact, for he would have had the same sport with less trouble and expense, and the result would have been equally gratifying.
For once poor Silas lost his equanimity. He actually wrung his hands in grief when he saw the terrible position of his vessel.
”My poor s.h.i.+ppie,” he said. ”Heaven help us! I was building castles in the air. But she is doomed! My bonnie s.h.i.+p is doomed.”
At the same time he wisely determined not to be idle, so provisions and valuables were got on sh.o.r.e, and all the men's clothes and belongings.
As nothing more could be done, Silas grew more contented. ”It was just his luck,” he said, ”just his luck.”
Long hours of anxiety to every one went slowly past, and still the swell kept up, and the bergs lifted and fell and swung on the unseen billows, and ground viciously against the great sides of the _Arrandoon_. Now the _Canny Scotia_ was somewhat Dutchified in her build--not as to bows but as to bottom. She was not a clipper by any manner of means, and her build saved her. The ice actually ground her up out of the water till she lay with her beam-ends on the ice, and her keel completely exposed.
[As did the _P--e_, of Peterhead, once for weeks. The men lived on the ice alongside, expecting the vessel to sink as soon as the ice opened.
The captain, however, would not desert his s.h.i.+p, but slept on board, his mattress lying on the s.h.i.+p's side. The author's s.h.i.+p was beset some miles off at the same time.]
But the _Arrandoon_ had no such build. The ice caught under her forefoot, and she was lifted twelve feet out of the water. No wonder McBain and our heroes were anxious. The former never went below during all the ten hours or more that the squeeze lasted. But the swells gradually lessened, and finally ceased. The _Arrandoon_ regained her position, and lost her list, but there lay the _Canny Scotia_, a pitiable sight to see, like some giant overthrown, silent yet suffering.
When the pumps of the _Arrandoon_ had been tried, and it was found that there was no extra water in her, McBain felt glad indeed, and thanked G.o.d from his inmost heart for their safe deliverance from this great peril. He could now turn his attention to consoling his friend Silas.
After dinner that day, said McBain,--
”Your cabin is all ready, Captain Grig, for of course you will sleep with us now.”
But Silas arose silently and calmly.
”I needn't say,” he replied, ”how much I feel your manifold acts of kindness, but Silas Grig won't desert his s.h.i.+p. His bed is on the _Canny Scotia_.”
”But, my dear fellow,” insisted McBain, ”the ice may open in an hour, and your good s.h.i.+p go down.”
”Then,” said Silas, ”I go with her, and it will be for you to tell my owners and my little wife--heaven keep her!--that Skipper Grig stuck to his s.h.i.+p to the last.”
What could McBain say, what argument adduce, to prevent this rough old tar from risking his life in what he considered a matter of duty?
Nothing! and so he was dumb.
Then away went Silas home, as he called it, to his s.h.i.+p. He lowered himself down by a rope, clambered over the doorway of the cabin, took one glance at the chaos around, then walked tenderly _over_ the bulkhead, and so literally _down_ to his bed. He found the mattress and bed-clothes had fallen against the side, and so there this good man, this true sailor, laid him down and slept the sleep of the just.
But the _Scotia_ did not go to the bottom; she lay there for a whole week, defying all attempts to move her, Silas sleeping on board every night, the only soul in her, and his crew remaining on the _Arrandoon_.
At the end of that time the ice opened more; then the prostrate giant seemed to begin to show signs of returning life. She swayed slightly, and looked as if she longed once more to feel the embrace of her native element; seeing which, scientific a.s.sistance was given her. Suddenly she sprang up as does a fallen horse, and hardly had the men time to seek safety on the neighbouring bergs, when she took the water-- relaunched herself--with a violence that sent the spray flying in every direction with the force of a cataract. It would have been well had the wetting the crew received been the only harm done.
It was not, for the bergs moved asunder with tremendous force. One struck the _Arrandoon_ in her weakest part--amids.h.i.+ps, under the water-line. She was stove, the timbers bent inwards and cracked, and the bunks alongside the seat of accident were dashed into matchwood.
Poor old Duncan Gibb, who was lying in one of these bunks with an almost united fracture of one of his limbs, had the leg broken over again.
”Never mind, Duncan,” said the surgeon, consolingly, ”I didn't make a vera pretty job of it last time. I'll make it as straight as a dart this turn!”
”Vera weel, sir; and so be it,” was poor contented Duncan's reply, as he smiled in his agony.
”Dear me, now!” said Silas, some time afterwards; ”I could simply cry-- make a big baby of myself and cry. It would be crying for joy and grief, you know--joy that my old s.h.i.+ppie should show so much pluck as to right herself like a race-horse, and grief to think she should go and stave the _Arrandoon_. The ungrateful old jade!”
”Never mind,” said McBain, cheerfully, ”Ap and the carpenters will soon put the _Arrandoon_ all right. We will s.h.i.+ft the ballast, throw her over to starboard, and repair her, and the place will be, like Duncan's leg, stronger than ever.”