Turned Adrift Part 7

"Just as you say," answered the skipper cheerfully. "We've got our old canvas hose stowed away somewhere. I'll have it routed out."

"Right," agreed Cunningham. "And while I'm keeping my watch on deck I'll think over this scheme of mine. I should rather like you to get the better of that man--what is his name?--oh yes, Sloc.u.m!"

"Yes, that's all right," a.s.sented the skipper. "But--look here, if that there scheme of yourn has to do with divin', Mister, who's goin' to do the divin'? I don't know nothin' about it."

"But I do," remarked Cunningham cheerfully. "I'll do the diving if I can only work out this idea that has come to me. And I believe I can."

From this point the conversation drifted away into generalities, and finally the skipper went below, leaving me in charge of the deck and of the forenoon watch. Later on Brown informed me that the late mate's cabin was entirely at my service, while Cunningham was inducted into a small spare stateroom which was in use as a sort of extra sail-room, but which the skipper ordered to be cleared out for the engineer's accommodation. Also, it appeared that when the late mate went overboard he left behind him a very fine s.e.xtant, which the skipper had purchased at the auction of the effects of the deceased, and this instrument he allowed me to use.

We, the new arrivals aboard the _Martha Brown_, shook down into our positions with a degree of prompt.i.tude that excited the liveliest admiration of the skipper. He was a shrewd old fellow, however, and for the first two days after our arrival he remained on deck all day, and was frequently up and down during the night, frankly confessing that he was anxious to observe the manner in which his new officers performed their duties; but after that he announced his intention to sleep in all night, laughingly declaring that as he was now employing two mates he saw no reason why he should not leave them to do the work and take his ease like a gentleman. He was good enough to express his complete satisfaction with my abilities as a navigator, and opened his eyes in astonishment when he saw that I was not content with a mere daily observation of the meridian alt.i.tude of the sun, but used as well such comparatively intricate problems as those of the double alt.i.tudes, lunars, alt.i.tudes of the stars, and Great Circle sailing. But what gratified him most of all, I think, was the fact that before we had been aboard two days I had got Simpson, the sailmaker, at work upon an enormous jack-yard gaff-topsail for use in light winds, the only gaff-topsail that the schooner had hitherto possessed being a trumpery little jib-headed affair which she could carry in quite a strong breeze.

I also caused a set of preventer backstays to be fitted, which enabled us to carry an amount of canvas in a breeze that would otherwise have been impossible.

We certainly did carry on in a manner that sometimes made the old man gasp with astonishment, for hitherto he had been in the habit of sailing his schooner in a very jog-trot fas.h.i.+on; but now we handled her as we would have done a racer, and it was surprising to see how, day after day, her mileage increased, and how rapidly her track on the chart stretched southward. The skipper, in his groping, cautious way, had fully intended to make sure of his position by heading for and sighting the Falklands before attempting to make the Straits, but I told him I regarded that as an utterly useless waste of time, and worked out a Great Circle track direct for Cape Virgins, at the entrance to the Straits, to his mingled consternation and delight. "If you don't cast the schooner away between you," he said, "I guess we'll get to that there oyster bank early enough to clean it out before the _Kingfisher_ arrives; for, smart seaman as Sloc.u.m thinks hisself, I reckon he ain't a patch on you for carryin' on."

For the first three or four days after our arrival on board the _Martha Brown_, Cunningham devoted his energies entirely to the task of qualifying himself to take charge of a watch, looking after the s.h.i.+p, and generally polis.h.i.+ng up his somewhat rusty seamans.h.i.+p; but he very quickly settled into his place, and then, whenever he had a spare moment, he got to work with a pencil and paper, making sketches and calculations. Then, one evening in the second dog-watch, he brought to me a sheet of paper on which he had sketched the outline of a human figure; he first showed me this, and then, producing a tape measure, he desired me to measure him very accurately, jotting down upon the diagram the several measurements as I called them out.

Then, a day or two afterwards, I found him busily at work with a quant.i.ty of light, thin, iron rod, which he had routed out from among the s.h.i.+p's stores. This rod he cut up into carefully measured lengths, and he welded and riveted these together, with the aid of a portable forge which he had rigged up on the lee side of the fore deck, until, in the course of a week, he had constructed some half a dozen light but strong skeleton frames. Having tried and proved these to his satisfaction, he procured an empty oak barrel, and, taking it carefully to pieces, set the carpenter to work to saw, cut out, and carefully plane up a number of thin strips from the staves. Then, when he had got as many of these strips as he required, he had small holes bored in them in certain positions, and, by means of a quant.i.ty of fine wire, proceeded to bind them carefully and strongly to the skeleton frames which he had previously made. And when he had done that, to my amazement he calmly proceeded to induct himself into them, with my a.s.sistance, and I then saw that the whole affair const.i.tuted a complete body armour of a kind, helmet and all. But, even then, I had no idea of what he was driving at until he condescended to explain.

"This," he said, "is the foundation of my diving suit, which will be complete when I have covered it with a double thickness of well-oiled canvas. The framework of thin rod will keep the water pressure off my body; the battens will support the outer covering of canvas and prevent it from bursting; and you will see that by the arrangement which I have adopted I secure ample flexibility for my purpose. Then, as soon as we arrive at our destination, I intend to have one of the screw deck-lights bodily removed and temporarily fixed in my helmet, which will enable me to see what I am doing when under water. Of course I shall need weights to hold me down; and my air will come down to me through the rubber deck hose, one end of which will be let into the back of my helmet, while the other will be firmly secured to some portion of the schooner where it will be out of the way. Of course it will be a very rough-and-ready, makes.h.i.+ft affair, but I believe it will prove fairly efficient for the purpose."

Cunningham's next business was to cut out and have sewn together for himself a single garment which combined the functions of stockings, trousers, and s.h.i.+rt. This was made of a double thickness of stout canvas, each thickness being well coated on both sides with two coats of boiled oil. It was a weird-looking garment, as it was intended to fit on outside the armour arrangement which he called his diving suit; but it was merely intended to exclude the water, and when it was finished and fitted I saw that it would serve its purpose perfectly well, and there seemed to be no reason why he should not be able to work in it at the bottom of the sea perfectly well. And he completed the whole affair by firmly attaching one end of the rubber hose pipe to the back of his helmet.

We made Cape Virgins on the day and at the hour, and almost the minute, which I had predicted, to the intense admiration and delight of the skipper; and reached Punta Arenas, in the Strait of Magellan, on the afternoon of the same day. Here we came to an anchor, and Brown, Cunningham, and I went ash.o.r.e, the skipper's business being to arrange for the refilling of our water tanks and the supply of a quant.i.ty of fresh meat, Cunningham's just to take a look round and stretch his long legs a bit, and mine to report the seizure of the _Zen.o.bia_ by Bainbridge and the crew, and to post to the owners a letter upon the same subject which I had prepared at my leisure. Our first enquiry was as to whether the _Kingfisher_ had pa.s.sed, and Brown's delight was great when he learned that thus far nothing had been seen of her.

We left Punta Arenas shortly after noon on the day following that of our arrival, still with no sign of the _Kingfisher_, and, being lucky enough to get a fine little slant of wind, safely accomplished the dangerous pa.s.sage and entered the Pacific on the evening of the succeeding day.

The slant of wind held long enough to enable us to gain an offing of a trifle over a hundred miles, and then it died away and left us becalmed and rolling gunwale under on the long Pacific swell.

Yes, there could be no doubt that the _Martha Brown_ knew how to roll; it was my first experience of her in a flat calm and a heavy swell, and had we not hastily rigged rolling tackles I verily believe that she would have rolled the masts out of her. Even the skipper, proud as he was of her, felt obliged to make some sort of apology for her, which he wound up by saying: "But some day a smarty'll come along and invent some way of turnin' this here rollin' to account as a means of propulsion, and then you'll see that builders'll fas.h.i.+on all s.h.i.+ps upon the model of the _Marthy_."

"Eh? What's that? Just say that again, Captain," remarked Cunningham, who, it being the second dog-watch, happened to be on deck.

The skipper said it again.

"Y-e-es," agreed Cunningham, thoughtfully, "y-e-es, I shouldn't wonder;"

and he walked away contemplatively.

"Now I wouldn't be so very powerful surprised if he was to turn out to be the smarty that I just mentioned," observed the skipper, jerking his thumb toward where Cunningham stood gazing abstractedly over the taffrail, with his feet wide apart and his hands locked behind him, balancing himself to the violent movements of the little vessel.

"Possibly," I agreed. "Cunningham is of a very inventive turn of mind.

But to convert the rolling motion of a s.h.i.+p into a forward movement is a pretty tall order, and would probably require exceedingly complicated machinery. The idea is by no means new, and I believe several inventors have had a turn at it; but nothing practical seems to have come of it as yet."

Nothing further was said upon the subject just then; but, the calm continuing all night and all the next day, I several times caught Cunningham with paper before him and a pencil in his hand, sketching and calculating. And when the next day also proved calm, and our observations showed that we had not progressed a couple of miles upon our journey, the skipper again addressed Cunningham upon the subject, asking him half-jestingly if he had not yet been able to devise some scheme to turn the eternal rolling to account.

"Oh yes!" answered Cunningham; "I dare say I could rig up some sort of an arrangement, if it were worth while. But it would be rather a c.u.mbersome contrivance to s.h.i.+p and uns.h.i.+p, and I would not recommend it unless there is likely to be much of this sort of thing between here and our destination."

"Well," said the skipper, "I reckon we may depend pretty certainly upon at least a fortnight of ca'ms afore we arrive at that there oyster bed; and it'd be worth a whole lot to me to get there a fortnight ahead of the _Kingfisher_. What's the thing like that you've invented, Mister, and could we knock it up out o' the stuff as we've got aboard?"

"Oh yes!" answered Cunningham, "I have kept strictly in mind our capabilities in the preparation of my sketch. I could easily devise a much better and more efficient concern, I am sure; but that would be quite useless to you, because we have neither the materials nor the skilled labour aboard to produce it. But," he continued, producing a pencil and paper and beginning to sketch rapidly, "I think we might manage to knock together a contrivance of this sort. There would be two of them, you understand, one on each side of the s.h.i.+p. This represents a stout timber frame, which would be secured in place by short lengths of chain bowsed taut by tackles, so that it would remain rigidly in position. It would reach from the rail down to about three feet below the surface of the water. This outrigger arrangement, which should be about nine feet long, will serve as the attachment for what we may call a fin, made of flexible planking securely fixed at its fore end to the outrigger, but quite free to move at the other end. Now this fin, being submerged when the frame is fixed in place, will be acted upon by the pressure of the water as the s.h.i.+p rolls, and will bend alternately upward and downward at an angle, the effect being that every time the s.h.i.+p rolls the bent fin will force backward a considerable quant.i.ty of water, or, what is the same thing, will have a tendency to thrust the s.h.i.+p forward at a rate which I estimate at--well, say about three knots per hour."

"Three knots an hour," repeated the skipper. "'Tain't very much, is it?

I thought, maybe, that you'd be able to fix up somethin' that 'd shove her along at about ten or twelve knots."

Cunningham laughed as he shook his head. "Come, come, Captain!" he protested, "be reasonable. To get ten or twelve knots out of this schooner you would require a steam engine of some eighty to a hundred horse power."

"Ay," admitted the skipper, rather unwillingly, "I s'pose I should.

Three knots an hour. That's, in round figures, seventy miles from noon to noon. And that, for, say, fourteen days, is--how much?"

"Nine hundred and eighty miles; call it a thousand," answered Cunningham.

"A thousand miles. Jings! It mounts up when you come to look at it that way," averred the skipper. "Look here, Mister," he continued, after thinking for a minute, "how long do you reckon it would take you to fix up that concarn of yours?"

"Oh, not very long," answered Cunningham. "The very roughest of workmans.h.i.+p would do, so long as it was strong. I dare say Chips and I could put it together in--well--say four days."

"Four days," repeated the skipper; "four days. Then I reckon you better go ahead straight away; and turn it out as quick as ever you can, for this here ca'm looks as though it meant to last a goodish while yet.

The gla.s.s is high an' steady, with an upward tendency, if anything, and I don't see no sign of wind anywheres about."

Within an hour Cunningham and Chips were hard at work upon the contrivance for circ.u.mventing the "ca'ms", and before knocking-off time they had got on deck all the timber they required, and some of it sawn to its proper length. The next day saw the completion of the cutting, sawing, and planing; and then came a fresh westerly breeze which enabled us to lay up within about two points of our course for the next five days, during which Cunningham completed his work, all but the bolting on of the fins, which could be done in about ten minutes. Then the wind gradually veered until we were not only enabled to lay our course, but had it a couple of points free, when, the wind being light, our big jack-yard gaff-topsail came into play with magnificent effect, pus.h.i.+ng the little hooker along at about six knots, when but for it she would scarcely have done four. And finally it fell calm again, and the schooner lost steerage way altogether. There was again every sign that the calm was likely to be prolonged--in fact, we were in the lat.i.tudes of the "Doldrums", or calms that occur just to the north and south of the Trade winds, where, as on the Line, the calms sometimes last for weeks at a stretch. It was therefore an excellent opportunity to test Cunningham's contrivance, and we accordingly proceeded to bolt it up and fix it in position. It was rather an awkward and c.u.mbersome arrangement, demanding the united strength of all hands to get it over the side, and it took us a full hour to get both parts fixed firmly and to Cunningham's satisfaction. But it had not been in position five minutes before we saw that it was going to prove a success; for not only did it serve to steady the little vessel, and ease her rolling to a considerable extent, but she immediately began to gather way, and within half an hour was slipping along through the water at the rate of a shade over four knots by the log. The skipper was enchanted. "Furl everything, Mr Temple," he said, "and head her due no'th. We'll just meander along now under bare poles until we runs into the south-east Trades; and when once we hits them we'll be all right, and needn't start tack nor sheet again until we reaches our oyster bed."

CHAPTER SEVEN.

THE PEARL-OYSTER BED.

We caught the south-east Trade winds the next day, very light at first, but gradually freshening as we ran farther into them; and then, as soon as we found ourselves fairly in the grip of the true breeze, with the water rippling blue and crisply all about us, we got the schooner under canvas once more, hoisted our "fins" inboard, and bore away upon a nor'-west course, with starboard studdingsails and big gaff-topsail set and dragging like a team of cart horses. A week of this sort of thing carried us to the calm belt under the Line; and here we once more brought our "fins" into action, using them for three whole days and a trifle over before we touched the southernmost fringe of the north-east Trades, when we again went bowling along under all plain sail, that being as much as we could conveniently show to a beam wind. Finally, on a certain morning immediately after breakfast, I climbed to the topgallant yard, armed with Cunningham's telescope, which I had borrowed for the occasion, and, looking straight ahead, saw--just where I had expected to see it, namely, some fifteen miles beyond our jibboom end--a patch of white water, some three miles in length, stretching north and south right athwart the schooner's hawse. It was the coral reef upon which, if the skipper's friend Abe Johnson had spoken truth, that worthy had suffered s.h.i.+pwreck, followed by all the horrors of complete solitude for five solid months; and some two miles beyond which lay--according to Abe--the rich pearl-oyster bed that was the real object of the _Martha Brown's_ visit to this lonesome spot in the heart of the Pacific.

"See anything, Mr Temple?" hailed the skipper from the quarterdeck, in a voice tense with excitement.

"Ay, ay, sir," I replied. "It is there, right enough, as plain as mud in a wine-gla.s.s, about fifteen miles off, and stretching right athwart our hawse. You had better luff a point, sir, and go round its northern extremity."

"Luff a p'int it is," answered the skipper, directing the helmsman.

Then, as the schooner came to her new course, "How's that, Mr Temple?"

"Excellent, sir," I replied; "we shall just nicely clear the northern end of the reef if she is kept at that."

"D'ye see anything else besides the reef, Mr Temple?" asked the skipper,--"anything, I mean, in the shape of another schooner, for instance?"

"Nothing at all, sir," I answered.

"That's all right, then," answered the skipper in a tone of exuberant satisfaction. "I guess you don't need to stay up there no longer, do ye?"

I slung the telescope round my neck by its strap, and then, swinging off the yard, slid down to the deck hand over hand by way of the topgallant backstay, walking aft and joining the skipper and Cunningham as soon as my feet touched the planks.

"So the reefs there, all right, is it?" remarked Brown, as I joined the pair and returned the telescope with thanks to its lawful owner. "There ain't no chance of a mistake, I s'pose?"

"No chance at all," I replied confidently. "It is there as plain as the nose on one's face. If you remember, I told you yesterday that, provided the breeze held, we should be at anchor in the lagoon by noon to-day; and so we shall."

"Ay, ay," answered Brown. "I remember your sayin' so. And I didn't doubt your word, not for a second, for you're an A1 navigator, and no mistake. Never knowed a better. But I was just a little bit afeard that Abe might ha' been playin' it on me, or else that his riggers might ha' got a bit mixed. But I reckon it's a square deal, since you say that the reefs there. What do it look like?"