My Danish Sweetheart: A Novel. Volume 1 of 3

by William Clark Russell

  CHAPTER VII.

  THE RAFT.

  How passed the rest of this the first day of my wild and dangerousadventure, of Helga's and my first day of suffering, peril, and romanticexperience, I cannot clearly recall. A few impressions only survive. Iremember returning to the deck-house and finding the captain stillsleeping. I remember conversing with Helga, who looked me very earnestlyin the face when I entered, and who, by some indefinable influence ofvoice and eye, coaxed me into speaking of my fit of horror on deck. Iremember that she left me to obtain some food, which, it seems, was keptin one of the cabins below, and that she returned with a tin ofpreserved meat, a little glass jar of jam, a tin of biscuits, and abottle of red wine like to what we had before drunk--a very pleasant,well-flavoured claret; that all the while we ate, her father slept,which made her happy, as she said he needed rest, not having closed hiseyes for three nights and days, though it was wonderful to me that heshould have fallen asleep in such a mood of excitement and ofconsternation as I had left him in; but as to his slumbering amid thatuproar of straining timbers and flying waters, it is enough to say thathe was a seaman.

  I also recollect that throughout the remainder of the day we worked thepump at every two hours or thereabouts; but the water was unmistakablygaining upon the barque, and to keep her free would have needed theincessant plying of the pumps--both pumps at once--by gangs of fellowswho could relieve one another and rest between. Helga told me that herfather had given orders for a windmill pump to be rigged, Scandinavianfashion, but that there had been some delay, so the barque sailedwithout it. I said that no windmill pump would have stood up half anhour in such a gale of wind as was blowing; but all the same, I bitterlylamented that there was nothing of the sort aboard, for these windmillarrangements keep the pumps going by the revolution of their sails, andsuch a thing must have proved inexpressibly valuable when the weathershould moderate, so as to allow us to erect it.

  The Captain slept far into the afternoon, but I could not observe whenhe awoke that he was the better for his long spell of rest. I enteredhis cabin fresh from a look round on deck, and found him just awake,with his eyes fixed upon his daughter, who sat slumbering upon thelocker, with her back against the cabin-wall and her pale face bowedupon her breast. He immediately attacked me with questions, delivered innotes so high, penetrating, and feverish with hurry and alarm that theyawoke Helga. We had to tell him the truth--I mean, that the water wasgaining, but slowly, so that it must conquer us if the gale continued,yet we might still hope to find a chance of our lives by keeping thepump going. He broke into many passionate exclamations of distress andgrief, and then was silent, with the air of one who abandons hope.

  'There are but two, and one of them a girl,' I heard him say, liftinghis eyes to the deck above as he spoke.

  The night was a dreadful time to look forward to. While there wasdaylight, while one could see, one's spirits seemed to retain a littlebuoyancy; but, speaking for myself, I dreaded the effect upon my mind ofa second interminable time of blackness, filled with the horrors of thegroaning and howling gale, of the dizzy motion of the tormented fabric,of the heart-subduing noises of waters pouring in thunder and beating involcanic shocks against and over the struggling vessel.

  Well, there came round the hour of nine o'clock by my watch. Longbefore, after returning from a spirit-breaking spell of toil at thepump, we had lighted the deck-house and binnacle lamps, had eaten ourthird meal that day to answer for tea or supper, and at Helga's entreatyI had lain down upon the deck-house locker to sleep for an hour or so ifI could, while she went to watch by her father and to keep an eye uponthe ship by an occasional visit to the deck.

  We had arranged that she should awaken me at nine, that we should thenapply ourselves afresh to the pump, that she should afterwards take myplace upon the locker till eleven, I, meanwhile, seeing to her fatherand to the barque, and that we should thus proceed in these alternationsthroughout the night. It was now nine o'clock. I awoke, and was lookingat my watch when Helga entered from the deck. She came up to me and tookmy hands, and cried:

  'Mr. Tregarthen, there are some stars in the sky. I believe the gale isbreaking!'

  Only those who have undergone the like of such experiences as these I amendeavouring to relate can conceive of the rapture, the new life, herwords raised in me.

  'I praise God for your good news!' I cried, and made a step to thebarometer to observe its indications.

  The rise of the mercury was a quarter of an inch, and this had happenedsince a little after seven. Yet, being something of a student of thebarometer in my little way, I could have heartily wished the rise muchmore gradual. It might betoken nothing more than a drier quality ofgale, with nothing of the old fierceness wanting. But then, to be sure,it might promise a shift, so that we stood a chance of being blownhomewards, which would signify an opportunity of preservation that mustneeds grow greater as we approached the English Channel.

  I went with Helga on deck, and instantly saw the stars shining towindward betwixt the edges of clouds which were flying across ourmastheads with the velocity of smoke. The heaven of vapour that had hungblack and brooding over the ocean for two days was broken up; where thesky showed it was pure, and the stars shone in it with a frostybrilliance. The atmosphere had wonderfully cleared; the froth glancedkeenly upon the hurling shadows of the seas, and I believed I couldfollow the clamorous mountainous breast of the ocean to the very throbof the horizon, over which the clouds were pouring in loose masses,scattering scud-like as they soared, but all so plentiful that theheavens were thick with the flying wings.

  But there was no sobering of the wind. It blew with its old dreadfulviolence, and the half-smothered barque climbed and plunged and rolledamid clouds of spray in a manner to make the eyes reel after a minute ofwatching her. Yet the mere sight of the stars served as a sup of cordialto us. We strove at the pump, and then Helga lay down; and in thismanner the hours passed till about four o'clock in the morning, whenthere happened a sensible decrease in the wind. At dawn it was stillblowing hard, but long before this, had we had sailors, we should havebeen able to expose canvas, and start the barque upon her course.

  I stood on top of the deck-house watching the dawn break. The bleak graystole over the frothing sea and turned ashen the curve of every runningsurge. To windward the ocean-line went twisting like a corkscrew uponthe sky and seemed to boil and wash along it as though it were the baseof some smoking wall. There was nothing in sight. I searched everyquarter with a passionate intensity, but there was nothing to be seen.But now the sea had greatly moderated, and, though the deck still sobbedwith wet, it was only at long intervals that the foam flew forwards. Thebarque looked fearfully wrecked, stranded and sodden. All her riggingwas slack, the decks were encumbered with the ends of ropes, the weatherside of the mainsail had blown loose and was fluttering in rags, thoughto leeward the canvas lay furled.

  I went on to the quarter deck and sounded the well. Practice hadrendered me expert, and the cast, I did not doubt, gave me the truedepth, and I felt all the blood in me rush to my heart when I beheldsuch an indication of increase as was the same as hearing one's funeralknell rung, or of a verdict of death pronounced upon one.

  I entered the deck-house with my mind resolved, and seated myself at thetable over against where Helga lay sleeping upon the locker, to considera little before arousing her. She showed very wan, almost haggard, bythe morning light; her parted lips were pale, and she wore a restlessexpression even in her sleep. It might be that my eyes being fixed uponher face aroused her; she suddenly looked at me, and then sat up. Justthen a gleam of misty sunshine swept the little windows.

  'The bad weather is gone!' she cried.

  'It is still too bad for us, though,' said I.

  'Does the wind blow from the land?' she asked.

  'Ay! and freshly too.'

  She was now able to perceive the meaning in my face, and asked meanxiously if anything new had happened to alarm me. I answered bygiving her the depth of water I
had found in the hold. She clasped herhands and started to her feet, but sat again on my making a littlegesture.

  'Miss Nielsen,' said I, 'the barque is taking in water very much fasterthan we shall be able to pump it out. We may go on plying the pump, butthe labour can only end in breaking our hearts and wasting precious timethat might be employed to some purpose. We must look the truth in theface, and make up our minds to let the vessel go, and to do our best,with God's help, to preserve our lives.'

  'What?' she asked in a low voice, that indicated awe rather than fear,and I noticed the little twitch and spasm of her mouth swiftly vanish inan expression of resolution.

  'We must go to work,' said I, 'and construct a raft, then get everythingin readiness to sway it overboard. The weather may enable us to do this.I pray so. It is our only hope, should nothing to help us come along.'

  'But my father?'

  'We shall have to get him out of his cabin on to the raft.'

  'But how? But how?' she cried with an air of wildness. 'He cannot move!'

  'If we are to be saved, he must be saved, at all events,' said I. 'What,then, can be done but to lower him in his cot, as he lies, on to thedeck and so drag him to the gangway and sling him on to the raft by atackle?'

  'Yes,' she said, 'that can be done. It will have to be done.' Shereflected, with her hands tightly locked upon her brow. 'How long do youthink,' she asked, 'will the _Anine_ remain afloat if we leave the pumpsuntouched?'

  'Your father will know,' said I. 'Let us go to him.'

  Captain Nielsen sat erect in his cot munching a biscuit.

  'Ha!' he cried as we entered. 'We are to have pleasant weather. Therewas some sunshine upon that port just now. What says the barometer, Mr.Tregarthen?' then contracting his brows while he peered at his daughteras though he had not obtained a view of her before, he exclaimed, 'Whatis the matter, Helga? What have you come to tell me?'

  'Father,' she answered, sinking her head a little and so looking at himthrough her eyelashes, 'Mr. Tregarthen believes, and I cannot doubt it,for there is the sounding-rod to tell the story, that water is fastentering the _Anine_, and that we must lose no time to prepare to leaveher.'

  'What!' he almost shrieked, letting fall his biscuit and grasping theedge of the cot with his emaciated hands, and turning his body to usfrom the waist, leaving his legs in their former posture as though hewere paralyzed from the hip down. 'The _Anine_ sinking? prepare to leaveher? Why, you have neglected the pump, then!'

  'No, Captain, no,' I answered. 'Our toil has been as regular as we havehad strength for. Already your daughter has done too much; look at her!'I cried, pointing to the girl. 'Judge with your father's eye how muchlonger she is capable of holding out!'

  'The pump must be manned!' he exclaimed, in such another shrieking noteas he had before delivered. 'The _Anine_ must not sink; she is all Ihave in the world. My child will be left to starve! Oh, she has strengthenough. Helga, the gentleman does not know your strength and courage!And you, sir,--you, Mr. Tregarthen--Ach! God! You will not let yourcourage fail you--you who came here on a holy and beautiful errand--no,no! you will not let your courage fail you, now that the wind is ceasingand the sun has broken forth, and the worst is past?'

  Helga looked at me.

  'Captain Nielsen,' said I, 'if there were a dozen of us we might hope tokeep your ship long enough afloat to give us a chance of being rescued;but not twelve, not fifty men could save her for you. The tempest hasmade a sieve of her, and what we have now to do is to construct a raftwhile we have time and opportunity, and to be ceaseless in our prayerthat the weather may suffer us to launch it and to exist upon it untilwe are succoured.'

  He gazed at me with a burning eye, and breathed as though he mustpresently suffocate.

  'Oh, but for a few hours' use of my limbs!' he cried, lifting histrembling hands. 'I would show you both how the will can be made tomaster the body's weakness. Must I lie here without power?' and as hesaid these words he grasped again the edge of his cot, and writhed sothat I was almost prepared to see him heave himself out; but the agonyof the wrench was too much; his face grew whiter still, he groaned low,and lay back, with his brow glistening with sweat-drops.

  'Father!' cried Helga, 'bear with us! Indeed it is as Mr. Tregarthensays. I feared it last night, and this morning has made me sure. We mustnot think of the ship, but of ourselves, and of you, father dear--ofyou, my poor, dear father!' She broke off with a sob.

  I waited until he had recovered a little from the torment he had causedhimself, and then gently, but with a manner that let him know I wasresolved, began to reason with him. He lay apparently listeningapathetically; but his nostrils, wide with breathing, and the hurriedmotions of his breast were warrant enough of the state of his mind.While I addressed him Helga went out, and presently returned with thesounding-rod, dark with the wet fresh from the well. He turned hisfeverish eyes upon it, but merely shook his head and lightly wrung hishands.

  'Father, you see it for yourself!' she cried.

  'Miss Nielsen,' said I, 'we are wasting precious minutes. Will yourfather tell you what depth of water his ship must take in to founder?'

  He, poor fellow, made no response, but continued to stare at the rod inher hand as though his intelligence on a sudden was all abroad.

  'Shall we go to work?' said I. She looked at her father wistfully.'Come,' I exclaimed, 'we _know_ we are right. We must make an effort tosave ourselves. Are not our lives our first consideration?'

  'I stepped to the door; as I put my hand to it, Captain Nielsen cried:'If you do not save the ship, how will you save yourselves?'

  'We must at once put some sort of raft together,' said I, halting.

  'A raft! in this sea!' he clasped his hands and uttered a low mockinglaugh that was more shocking in him than the maddest explosion of tempercould have shown.

  I could no longer linger to hear his objections. Helga might be verydear to him, but his ship stood first in his mind, and I had no idea ofbreaking my heart at the pump and then of being drowned after all. Myhope was indeed a forlorn one, but it was a hope for all that; whereas Iknew that the ship would give us no chance whatever. Besides, our makingready for the worst would not signify that we should abandon the vesseluntil her settling forced us over the side. And was the gentle, heroicHelga to perish without a struggle on my part, because her father clungwith a sick man's craziness--which in health he might be quick todenounce--to this poor tempest-strained barque that was all he had inthe world?

  I went out and on to the deck, and was standing thinking a minute of theraft and how we should set about it, when Helga joined me.

  'He is too ill to be reasonable,' she exclaimed.

  'Yes,' said I, 'but we will save him and ourselves too, if we can. Letus lose no more time. Do you observe that the wind has sensiblydecreased even while we have been talking in your father's cabin? Thesky has opened more yet to windward, and the seas are running with muchless weight.'

  As I spoke the sun flashed into a rift in the vapour sweeping down theeastern heaven, and the glance of the foam to the splendour, and thesudden brightening of the cloud-shadowed sea into blue, animated me likesome new-born hope, and was almost as invigorating to my spirits asthough my eyes had fallen upon the gleam of a sail heading our way.

  I should but weary you to relate, step by step, how we went to work toconstruct a raft. The motion of the deck was still very violent, but itfound us now as seasoned as though we had kept the sea for years; and,indeed, the movement was becoming mere child's-play after the tossing ofthe night. A long hour of getting such booms as we wanted off thesailors' house on to the deck, and of collecting other materials for ourneeds, was not, by a very great deal, so exhausting as ten minutes atthe pump. We broke off a little after nine o'clock to get some food, andto enable Helga to see to her father; and now the cast we took with thesounding-rod advised us, with most bitter significance of indication,that, even though my companion and I had strength to hold to the pumpfor a whole watch--I mean for fou
r hours at a spell--the water wouldsurely, if but a little more slowly, vanquish us in the end. Indeed,there was no longer question that the vessel had, in some parts of her,been seriously strained; and though I held my peace, my sincereconviction was that, unless some miracle arrested the ingress of thewater, she would not be afloat at five o'clock that day.

  By one we had completed the raft, and it lay against the main hatch,ready to be swayed over the side and launched. I had some smallknowledge of boat-building, having acquired what I knew from a smallyard down past the lifeboat-house at Tintrenale, where boats were built,and where I had killed many an hour, pipe in mouth, watching and askingquestions, and even lending a hand; and in constructing this raft Ifound my slender boat-building experiences very useful. First we made aframe of four stout studdingsail booms, which we securely lashed to fourempty casks, two of which lay handy to our use, while of the other two,one we found in the galley, half full of slush, and the other in thecabin below where the provisions were stored. We decked the frame withbooms, of which there was a number, as I have previously said, stackedon top of the sailors' deck-house, and to this we securely lashedplanking, to which we attached some hatch-covers, binding the whole withturn upon turn of rope. To improve our chance of being seen, I providedfor setting up a topgallant-studdingsail boom as a mast, at the head ofwhich we should be able to show a colour. I also took care to hedge thesides with a little bulwark of life-lines lest the raft should be swept.There were many interstices in this fabric fit for holding a stock ofprovisions and water.

  I had no fear of its not floating high, nor of its not holding together:but it would be impossible to express the heaviness of heart with whichI laboured at this thing. The raft had always been the most dreadfulnightmare of the sea to my imagination. The stories of the sufferings ithad been the theatre of were present to my mind as I worked, and againand again they would cause me to break off and send a despairing lookround; but never a sail showed; the blankness was that of the heavens.

  We had half-masted a second Danish ensign after coming out from breakingour fast, and one needed but to look at the breezy rippling of its largefolds to know that the wind was rapidly becoming scant. By one o'clock,indeed, it was blowing no more than a pleasant air of wind, still out ofthe north-east. The stormy, smoke-like clouds of the morning were gone,and the sky was now mottled by little heaps of prismatic vapour thatsailed slowly under a high delicate shading of cloud, widely broken, andshowing much clear liquid blue, and suffering the sun to shine verysteadily. There was a long swell rolling out of the north-east; but thebrows were so wide apart that there was no violence whatever in theswaying of the barque upon it. The wind crisped these swinging folds ofwater, and the surface of the ocean scintillated with lines of smallseas feathering, with merry curlings, into foam. But it was fine-weatherwater, and the barometer had risen greatly, and I could now believe thatthere was nothing more in the rapidity of its indications than a promiseof a pleasant day and of light winds.

  I could have done nothing without Helga. Her activity, herintelligence, her spirit, were amazing, not indeed only because she wasa girl, but because she was a girl who had undergone a day and twofrightful nights of peril and distress, who had slept but little, whoselabours at the pump might have exhausted a seasoned sailor. She seemedto know exactly what to do, was wise in every suggestion, and I couldnever glance at her face without finding the sweetness of it renderednoble by the heroism of the heart that showed in her firm mouth, hercomposed countenance, and steadfast, determined gaze.

  At times we would break off to sound the well, and never without findinga fresh nimbleness coming into our hands and feet, a wilder desire ofhurry penetrating our spirits from the assurance of the rod. Steadily,inch by inch, the water was gaining, and already at this hour of oneo'clock it was almost easy to guess the depth of it by the sluggishnessof the vessel's rolling, by the drowning character of her languidrecovery from the slant of the swell. I felt tolerably confident,however, that she would keep afloat for some hours yet, and God knows wecould not have too much time granted to us, for there was much to bedone; the raft to be launched and provisioned; and the hardest part wasyet to come, I mean the bringing of the sick captain from his cabin andhoisting him over the side.

  At one o'clock we broke off again to refresh ourselves with food anddrink, and Helga saw to her father. For my part I would not enter hisberth. I dreaded his expostulations and reproaches, and, indeed, I maysay that I shrank from even the sight of him, so grievous were his whiteface and dying manner--so depressing to me, who could not look at theraft and then turn my eyes upon the ocean without guessing that I was asfully a dying man as he, and that, when the sun set this night, it mightgo down for ever upon us.

  There was but one way of getting the raft over, and that was by thewinch and a tackle at the mainyard-arm. Helga said she would take thetackle aloft, but I ran my eye over her boy-clad figure with a smile,and said 'No.' She was, indeed, a better sailor than I, but it would bestrange indeed if I was unable to secure a block to a yardarm. We bracedin the mainyard until the arm of it was fair over the gangway, and Ithen took the tackle aloft and attached the block by the tail of it.

  I lay over the yard for a minute or two while I looked round; but thesea brimmed unbroken towards the sky, and I descended again and againshuddering without control over myself, as I gazed at the little fabricof the raft and contrasted it with the size of the ship that was slowlyfoundering, and then with the great sea upon whose surface it wouldpresently be afloat--the only object, perhaps, under the eye of heavenfor leagues and leagues!

  Our business now was to get the raft over the side. I should have tofatigue and perhaps perplex you with technicalities exactly to explainour management of it. Enough if I say that, by hooking on the lowerblock of the tackle to ropes which formed slings for the raft, and bytaking the hauling part to the winch, we very easily swayed thestructure clear of the bulwark-rail--for you must know that the winch,with its arrangements of handles, cogs, and pawls, is a piece ofshipboard mechanism with which a couple of persons may do as much as adozen might be able to achieve using their arms only.

  When the raft was high enough Helga stood by the winch ready to slackenaway on my giving the word of command; while I went to a line which heldthe fabric over the deck. This line I eased off until the raft had swungfairly over the water, and then called to Helga to slacken away, and theraft sank, and in a minute or two was water-borne, riding upon the swellalongside, and buoyed by the casks even higher above the surface than Ihad dared hope.

  'Now, Miss Nielsen!' cried I.

  'Oh! pray call me Helga,' she broke in; 'it is my name: it is short! Iseem to answer to it more readily, and in this time, this dreadful time,I could wish to have it, and none other!'

  'Then, Helga,' said I, even in such a moment as this feeling my heartwarm to the brave, good, gentle little creature as I pronounced theword, 'we must provision the raft without delay. Our essential needswill be fresh water and biscuit. What more have you in yourprovision-room below?'

  'Come with me!' said she, and we ran into the deck-house and descendedthe hatch, leaving the raft securely floating alongside, not only in thegrip of the yardarm tackle, which the swaying of the vessel had fullyoverhauled, but in the hold of the line with which we had slacked thestructure over the rail.

  It was still dark enough below; but when we opened the door of the berthin which, as I have told you, the cabin provisions were stowed, we foundthe sunshine upon the scuttle or porthole, and the apartment lay clearin the light. In about twenty minutes, and after some three or fourjourneys, we had conveyed on deck as much provisions as might serve tokeep three persons for about a month: cans of meat, some hams, severaltins of biscuit, cheese, and other matters, which I need not catalogue.But we had started the fresh water in the scuttle-butts that they mightbe emptied to serve as floats for the raft, and now we had to find acask or receptacle for drinking-water, and to fill it, too, from thestock in the hold. Here I should have been a
t a loss but for Helga, whoknew where the barque's fresh water was stowed. Again we entered thecabin or provision-room, and returned with some jars whose contents weemptied--vinegar, I believe it was, but the hurry my mind was then inrendered it weak in its reception of small impressions; these we filledwith fresh water from a tank conveniently stowed in the main hatchway,and as I filled them Helga carried them on deck.

  While we were below at this work I bade her listen.

  'Yes, I hear it!' she cried: 'it is the water in the hold.'

  With every sickly lean of the barque you could hear the water inside ofher seething among the cargo as it cascaded now to port and now tostarboard.

  'Helga, she cannot live long,' said I. 'I believe, but for the hissingof the water, we should hear it bubbling into her.'

  I handed her up the last of the jars, and grasped the coaming of thehatch to clamber on to the deck, for the cargo came high. As I did this,something seemed to touch and claw me upon the back, and a huge blackrat of the size of a kitten leapt from my shoulder on to the deck andvanished in a breath. Helga screamed, and indeed, for the moment, my ownnerves were not a little shaken, for I distinctly felt the wire-likewhisker of the horrible creature brush my cheek as it sprang from myshoulder.

  'If there be truth in the proverb,' said I, 'we need no surer hint ofwhat is coming than the behaviour of that rat.'

  The girl shuddered, and gazed, with eyes bright with alarm, into thehold, recoiling as she did so. I believe the prospect of drifting abouton a raft was less terrible to her than the idea of a second rat leapingupon one or the other of us.