Afloat at Last Read online

  CHAPTER THREE.

  WARPING OUT OF DOCK.

  While the boatswain was still speaking, and expressing his regret at notbeing able to show the stevedores that he properly appreciated the modein which they had done their work, I noticed a boy come out fromsomewhere on the deck below, just underneath where we were standing, andmake his way towards the forepart of the ship, apparently in a greathurry about something or other.

  I wondered what he was going to do, and was puzzling my head about thematter, not liking to interrupt Tim Rooney, when the boy himself thenext instant satisfied my curiosity by going up to the ship's bell,which was suspended in its usual place, under the break of theforecastle, just above and in front of the windlass bits away forward;when, catching hold of a lanyard hanging from the end of the clapper, hestruck four sharp raps against the side of the bell, the sound ringingthrough the air and coming back distinctly to us aft on the poop. Ishould, however, explain that I, of course, was not familiar with allthese nautical details then, only learning them later on, mainly throughTim Rooney's help, when my knowledge of ships and of sea terms becamemore extended.

  Just as the last stroke of the bell rang out above the babble of themen's voices and the shuffling noise of their feet moving about, thefour strokes being sounded in pairs, "cling-clang, cling-clang!" like adouble postman's knock, a slim gentlemanly young man, with brown hairand beard and moustache, who was dressed in a natty blue uniform likemine, save that he wore a longer jacket and had a band of gold laceround his cap in addition to the solitary crown and anchor badge whichmy head-gear rejoiced in, appeared on top of the gangway leading fromthe wharf alongside. The next instant, jumping down from the top of thebulwarks on to the main-deck, a couple of strides took him to the footof the poop ladder, quickly mounting which, he stood beside us.

  "Sure, an' it's proud I am to say yez, sorr," exclaimed the boatswain,touching the peak of his dilapidated cheese-cutter in salute, and with asmile of welcome on his genial face; "though it's lucky, bedad, yedidn't come afore, Misther Mackay, or faix ye'd have bin in toime to betoo soon."

  "How's that, Rooney?" inquired the other with a pleasant laugh, showinghis nice white teeth. "Instead of being too early, I'm afraid I am alittle late."

  "The divil a bit, sorr," replied Rooney. "We've only jist this viryminnit struck down the last av the cargo; an' if ye'd come afore, why,it's ruckshions there'd a bin about our skulkin', I know."

  "No, no," laughingly said the young officer; who, I suppose, was olderthan he looked, for Tim Rooney told me in a loud whisper while he wasspeaking that he was the "foorst mate" of the ship. "I'm not half sucha growler as you are, bosun; but, all the same, I'm glad you've got thejob done. Who's been looking after the dock mateys below, seeing to thestowage?"

  "Misther Saunders, sorr," promptly answered Rooney. Adding aside for myenlightenment as to who this worthy might be: "The `sicond mate,' sure,mavourneen."

  "Ah, then we need have no fears about its being well done," rejoined MrMackay, or the first mate, as I'd better call him. "Who is our friendhere alongside of you, bosun? I don't recollect having the pleasure ofseeing him before. Another youngster from Leadenhall Street--eh?"

  He looked at me inquiringly as he asked the question.

  "Yes, sorr. He's Misther Gray-ham, sorr; jist come down to jine theSilver Quane, sorr, as foorst-class apprentice," replied the boatswainwith a sly wink to the other, which I was quick enough to catch. Addingin a stage whisper, which I also could not help overhearing: "An' it'sfoorst-class he is entoirely--a raal broth av a bhoy, sure."

  "Indeed," said Mr Mackay, smiling at the Irishman's irony at myexpense, in return no doubt for my whimsical assumption of dignity whentelling him who I was. "I suppose he's come to fill the place of youngRawlings, who, you may remember, cut and run from us at Singapore on ourlast voyage out?"

  "I s'pose so, sorr," rejoined Tim laconically.

  "I'm very happy, I am sure, to see you on board and make youracquaintance," said the pleasant-faced young officer, turning to me in anice cordial way that increased the liking I had already taken to him atfirst sight. "Have you got your traps with you all right, Mr Graham?"

  "My father sent on my sea-chest containing all my clothes and thingslast night by the goods train from our place, addressed to the brokersin Leadenhall Street, as they directed, sir; so I hope it will arrive intime," I replied, quite proud of a grown-up fellow like Mr Mackayaddressing me as "Mister."

  "You needn't be alarmed about its safety, then, I suppose," observed hejokingly. But, of course, although he might have thought so from mymanner, I had really no fears respecting the fate of my chest, and ofits being forthcoming when I wanted it. Indeed, until that moment, Ihad not thought about it at all; for I knew father had despatched it allright from Westham; and when he attended to anything no mishap everoccurred--at least that was our opinion at home!

  Fancying, from the expression of my face as these thoughts and therecollection of those I had left behind at the rectory flashed throughmy mind, that I was perhaps worrying myself about the chest, which ofcourse I wasn't, Mr Mackay hastened, as he imagined, to allay my fears.

  "There, there! don't bother yourself about your belongings, my boy,"said he kindly; "your chest and other dunnage came down to the shipearly this morning from the brokers along with that of the otheryoungsters, and you'll find it stowed in that after-deckhouse belowthere, where you midshipmen or apprentices will all live together in ahappy family sort of way throughout the voyage."

  "Thank you, sir," I answered, much obliged for his courtesy andinformation; although, I confess, I wondered where the "house" was ofwhich he spoke, there being nothing like even a cottage on the deck,which with everything connected with it was utterly strange to me.

  My face must again have reflected my thoughts; for even Tim Rooneynoticed the puzzled expression it bore, as I looked over the poop railin the direction Mr Mackay pointed.

  "I don't think, sorr, the young gintleman altogether onderconstubblesyour manin'," he remarked to the mate in that loud whisper of his whichthe poor man really did not intend me to hear, as I'm sure he wouldn'thave intentionally hurt my feelings. "Sure an' it's a reg'ler greenhand the bhoy is entoirely."

  "Never mind that now; he'll soon learn his way to the weather earring,if I don't mistake the cut of his jib," retorted Mackay in a lower toneof voice than the other, although I caught the sense of what he saidequally well, as he turned to me again with the evident desire ofputting me at my ease. "Have you seen any of your mess-mates yet, myboy--eh?"

  "No, sir," I answered, smiling in response to his kindly look. "I haveseen no one since I came on board but you and Mr Rooney, who spoke tome first; and, of course, those men working over there."

  "Sure, sorr, all av 'em are down below a-grubbin' in the cuddy sincedinner-toime," interposed my friend the boatswain by way of explanation,on seeing the mate looked surprised at hearing that none of the otherofficers were about when all should have been so busy. "Ivery man Jackav 'em, sorr, barrin' Misther Saunders; who, in coorse, as I tould you,sorr, has bin down in the hould a-sayin' to the stowage of the cargy,more power to his elbow! An', be the same token, I thinks I sayed himjist now coom up the main-hatchway an' goin' to the cuddy too, to jointhe others at grub."

  "Oh!" ejaculated Mr Mackay with deep meaning, swinging round on hisheel, all alert in an instant; and taking hold of a short bar of ironpointed at the end, lying near, which Tim Rooney told me afterwards waswhat is called a "marling-spike," he proceeded to rap with it vigorouslyagainst the side of the companion hatchway, shouting out at the sametime so that he could be heard all over the ship: "Tumble up, all youidlers and stowaways and everybody! Below there--all hands on deck towarp out of dock!"

  "Be jabers, that'll fetch 'em, sorr," cried Tim with a huge grin, muchrelishing this summoning of the laggards to work. "Sure, yer honour,ye're the bhoy to make 'em show a leg when ye wants to, an' no misthakeat all, at all!"

  "Aye, and I wa
nt them now," rejoined the other with emphasis. "We havegot no time to lose; for, the tide is making fast, and the tug has beenoutside the lock-gates waiting for the last half-hour or more to take usin tow as soon as we get out in the stream. Below there--look alive andtumble up before I come down after you!"

  In obedience to this last hail of Mr Mackay, which had a sharpauthoritative ring about it, a short, podgy little man with a fat neckand red whiskers, who, as I presently learned, was Mr Saunders, thesecond mate, came up the companion way; and as I perceived him to bewiping his mouth as he stepped over the coaming of the hatchway, thisshowed that the boatswain's surmise of his being engaged "grubbing" withthe others was not far wrong.

  Mr Saunders was followed up from below by a couple of sturdy youths,who appeared to be between eighteen and nineteen or thereabout; and,behind them again, the last of the file, slowly stepped out on to thedeck a lanky boy of about the same age as myself--which I forgot tomention before was just fifteen, although I looked older from my buildand height.

  "You're a nice lot of lazy fellows to leave in charge of the work of theship!" cried Mr Mackay on the three presenting themselves before him,slowly mounting the companion stairs, one after the other, as if theexertion was almost too great for them, poor fellows, after theirdinner! "Here, you Matthews, look sharp and stir your stumps a bit--onewould think you were walking in your sleep. I want you to see to thatspring forwards as we unmoor!"

  The boatswain had already descended from the poop and gone to hisstation in the fore part of the ship; and now, with the first mate'swords, all was stir and action on board.

  The tallest of the two youths immediately dashed off towards the bows ofthe ship with an alacrity that proved his slow movements previously hadbeen merely put on for effect, and were not due to any constitutionalweakness; for, he seemed to reach the forecastle in two bounds, and Icould see him, from a coign of vantage to which he nimbly mounted on topof the knightheads, giving orders to a number of men on the wharf, whohad gathered about the ship in the meantime, and directing them to passalong the end of the fore hawser round a bollard on the jetty, near theend of the lock-gates by which entrance was gained from the adjacentriver to the basin in which the vessel was lying.

  Tom Jerrold, the second youth--I heard him called by that name--was sentto look after another hawser passed over the bows of the ship on thestarboard side, the end of the rope being bent round a capstan in thecentre of the wharf.

  Then, on Mr Mackay's word of command, the great wire cables mooring theship to the jetty were cast off; and, a gang of the dock labourersmanning the capstan, with their broad chests and sinewy arms pressedagainst the bars, as they marched round it singing some monotonouschorus ending in a "Yo, heave, ho!" the ship began to move--at firstslowly inch by inch, and then with increased way upon her as the _visinertiae_ of her hull was overcome--towards the lock at the mouth of thebasin, the gates of which had been opened, or rather the caisson floatedout shortly before, as the tide grew to the flood.

  Dear me! What with the constant and varied orders to the gang of menworking the capstan, and the others easing off the hawser that had beenpassed round the bollard, keeping a purchase on it and hauling in theslack as the vessel crept along out of the dock so as to prevent her"taking charge" and slewing round broadside on at the entrance where shemet the full force of the stream, I was well-nigh deafened with thehoarse shouts and unintelligible cries that filled the air on all sides,everybody apparently having something to say, and all calling out atonce.

  "Bear a hand with that spring!" Mr Mackay would roar out one instantin a voice that quite eclipsed that of Tim Rooney, loud as I thoughtthat on first going on board. "Easy there!" screamed Matthews from hisperch forwards, not to be outdone; while the boatswain was singing outfor a "fender" to guard the ship's bows from scrunching against the dockwall, and Tom Jerrold overseeing the men at the bollard on the wharfcalling out to them to "belay!" as her head swung a bit. Even lankyyoung Sam Weeks, the other middy like myself, had something or other tosay about the "warp fouling," the meaning of which I did not catch,although he seemed satisfied at adding to the general hubbub. All thetime, too, there was the red-headed Mr Saunders, the second mate, whohad stationed himself in the main-chains, whence he could get a goodview of what was going on both forward and aft alike, continually urgingon the men at the capstan to "heave with a will!"--just as if theywanted any further urging, when they had Mr Mackay at them already andtheir tramping chorus, "Yo, heave, ho" to fall back upon!

  It was a wonder, with so many contradictory commands, as these allseemed to my ignorant ears, that some mishap did not happen. But,fortunately, nothing adverse occurred to delay the ship; and those onshore being apparently as anxious to get rid of the Silver Queen asthose on board were to clear her away from the berth she had so longoccupied when loading alongside the jetty, she was soon by dint ofeverybody's shouting and active co-operation warped out of the basininto the lock, drifting thence on the bosom of the tideway into thestream.

  Here, a little sturdy tug of a paddle steamer, which had been waitingfor us the last hour or more, puffing up huge volumes of dense blacksmoke, and occasionally sounding her shrill steam whistle to give ventto her impatience, ranged up alongside, someone on her deck heavingdexterously a line inboard, which Tim Rooney the boatswain asdexterously caught as it circled in the air like a lasso and fellathwart the boat davits amidships.

  The line was then taken forwards by Tim Rooney outside the rigging, hewalking along the gunwale till he gained the forecastle; there, anotherman then lending a hand, the line was hauled in with the end of a strongsteel hawser bent on to it, that had been already passed over the sternof the tug, and the bight carried across the "towing-horse" and firmlyfastened to the tug's fore-deck, while our end on reaching theforecastle of the Silver Queen was similarly secured inboard, Timsatisfying himself that it was taut by jumping on it.

  "Are you ready?" now hailed the master of the tug from the paddle-box ofhis little vessel, calling out to Mr Mackay who was leaning over thepoop of ours which seemed so big in comparison, the hull of the shiptowering above the tug and quite overshadowing her. "Are you ready,sir?"

  "Aye, aye!" sang out Mr Mackay in answer. "You can start as soon asyou like. Fire up and heave ahead!"

  Then, the steamer's paddles revolved, the steel hawser, stretched overher towing-horse astern and attached to our bows, tightened with a sortof musical twang as it became rigid like a bar of iron; and, in anotherminute or so, the Silver Queen was under good way, sailing down theThames outwards bound.

  "Fo'c's'le, ahoy there!" presently shouted out Mr Mackay near me all ofa sudden, making me jump round from my contemplation of the river, intowhich I was gazing down from over the stern, looking at the broad whitefoaming wake we left behind us as we glided on. "Is the bosun there?"

  "Aye, aye, sorr," promptly replied Tim Rooney, showing himself frombehind the deck-house between the mainmast and foremast, which hadpreviously hidden him from the view of the poop. "I'm here, sort."

  "Then send a hand aft to the wheel at once," rejoined Mr Mackay. "Looksharp, we're under steerage-way."

  "Aye, aye, sorr," answered the boatswain as before; and as he spoke Icould see a tall seaman making his way aft in obedience to the firstmate's orders; and, before Mr Mackay had time to walk across the deck,he had mounted the poop, cast off the lashings that prevented the wheelfrom moving, and was whirling the spokes round with both hands inthorough ship-shape style.

  This man's name was Adams, as I subsequently learnt; and he was thesailmaker--one of the best sailors on board, and one of the old hands,having sailed with Tim Rooney, as the latter told me, the two previousvoyages. That sort of man, in the boatswain's words, who was always"all there" when wanted.

  I am anticipating matters, however, Mr Mackay being not yet done withTim; for, after telling Adams to go aft to take his trick at the wheel,the worthy boatswain was just about disappearing again behind theforward deck-house as before to
resume some job on which he seemed veryintent, when his steps were once more arrested by the mate's hail,"Bosun!"

  "Aye, aye, sorr," cried Tim Rooney rather savagely as he stopped andfaced round towards the break of the poops on which Mr Mackay stood bythe rail; and I'm sure I heard him mutter something else below hisbreath even that distance off.

  "Is the anchor all clear?" asked the first mate. "You know we shallwant it for bringing up at Gravesend."

  "Yis, sorr," said the other. "I ased off the catfalls an' shank painteriver since the mornin'; an', sure, the blissid anchor is a-cockbill, allriddy to lit go whin ye gives the worrud."

  "And the cable--how many shackles have you got up?"

  "Thray lingths, sorr. I thought that enough for the river, wid a fowerfathom bottom; so, I've bitted it at that, an' me an' Jackson are a-sayin' about clearin' the cable range now."

  "That's right," replied Mr Mackay, apparently satisfied that at lasteverything forward was going on as it should; for he turned away fromthe poop rail and entered into conversation with a stout thicksetstrange man, dressed in sailor's clothes, but with a long black oilskinor waterproof over his other garments reaching down to his heels,although it wasn't raining at all, being a bright, fine afternoon.

  Not only had this new-comer arrived on board without my noticing him,although I had been looking out all the time, but he managed to get upon the poop in the most mysterious way. I was certain he had not beenanywhere near the moment before, and yet, now, there he was.

  He must be the captain at last, I thought, having been expecting to seethat personage appear on the scene every moment; and my impression ofhis being one in authority was confirmed a moment later, when, from hisgiving some order or command, Mr Mackay left him hastily, and comingfurther aft took up a position nearer me, close to Adams, just abaft thebinnacle. The oilskin man, however, remained on the weather side of thepoop at the head of the ladder, whence he had a good look-out ahead,clear of all intervening obstacles, and from which post he proceeded todirect the steering of the ship by waving his arms this way and that asif he were an animated windmill

  The first mate interpreted as quickly these signals for the benefit ofAdams, passing on the words of warning they conveyed, "Hard up!" or"Down helm!" or "Steady!" as the case might be. These frequent andoften contradictory orders were necessary, when, owing to someunexpected bend in the river, the Silver Queen would luff up suddenlyand shoot her head athwart stream hard a-port, or else try to "take thebit between her teeth," and sheer into the shore on the starboard handas if she wanted to run up high and dry on the mud, loth to leave hernative land.

  She required good steering.

  Aye, and careful watching too, on the part of the helmsman; for, inaddition to the natural turnings and windings of the channel-way, whichwere many, the Thames curving about and twisting itself into the shapeof a corkscrew between London Bridge and the Nore, the tug had besidescontinually to alter her course, thus, naturally, making us change ourstoo, as the tow-rope slackening one moment would cause the ship's bowsto fall off, and then tightening like a fiddle-string the next instanther head would be jerked back again viciously into its former position,right astern of the little vessel at whose mercy we were, as if sheinsisted on the Silver Queen following obediently in her wake.

  This eccentric mode of procedure, however, must not be altogetherascribed to any contrariness of disposition on the part of the gallanttug, which, in spite of occasional stoppages and frequent alterations ofcourse, yet towed us along steadily down the river--a pigmy pulling agiant. Such a monster we seemed, lumbering behind her as she panted andpuffed huge volumes of black smoke from her tall striped funnel, withmuch creaking of her engines and groaning of her poor strained timbers,and the measured rhythmical beat of her paddle-floats on the surface ofthe water, that sounded as if she were "spanking" it out of spite.

  No, it wasn't the fault of the little, dirty, toiling tug, whose dailydrudgery did not give her time to look after her toilet and study herpersonal appearance like those bigger craft she had always tacked on toher tail. For these turnings and twistings we had to take in ourdownward journey to Gravesend and the open sea beyond; the innumerablebackings and fillings and bendings this way and that, now going aheadfull speed for a couple of minutes, now coming to a full stop with asharp order to let her drift astern, were all due to the fact of the tughaving to keep clear, and keep us clear, too, of the innumerable inward-bound steamers, passenger boats, and other vessels coming up stream.The tideway being crowded with craft of all sorts, navigation wasexceedingly difficult for a heavily-laden ship in tow, especially inthat awkward reach between Greenwich and Blackwall, where the river,after trending south by east, makes an abrupt turn almost due north.This place I thought the worst part of the journey then when I first sawit; and, I am of the same opinion still, although now better acquaintedwith the Thames and all its mysteries.

  On the bustle that ensued when she began to warp out of dock, I had leftthe poop, along with the boatswain and the others, going down the ladderat the side on to the main-deck; but, when arrived there, I soondiscovered that an idler like myself, standing by with nothing to do,was in the way alike of the ropes that were being thrown and draggedabout and of the men handling them--this knowledge being brought homevery practically by my getting tripped and knocked about from pillar topost by those rushing here and there to execute the various ordershoarsely bawled out to them each instant, and which would not admit ofdelay.

  "Look out there!" would shout one, nearly strangling me with the bightof a line circling in the air round my unfortunate head. "By yourleave!" would cry another, jamming me, most certainly without myconsent, against the bulwarks, and making me feel as flat as a pancakeall over. So, first pushed this way and then driven that, and mauledabout generally, I got forced away by degrees from the forward part ofthe deck, where I had taken up a position in the thick of the fray, backagain to my original starting-point, the poop; and here, now, ensconcingmyself by the taffrail at the extreme end of the vessel, I thought therewas no danger of anyone asking me to get out of the way or move on anyfurther, unless they shoved me overboard altogether.