CHAPTER V
VOICES IN THE NIGHT
The boat tackle of the _Gaston de Paris_ was the latest patentarrangement for lowering boats in a hurry; every boat was provisioned,and the water casks left nothing to be desired, there were frequentinspections and boat drills. Yet when the _Gaston de Paris_ founderedonly three souls were saved.
The starboard boats, owing to the list, could not be lowered at all;every boat had its canvas cover on, which did not expedite matters. Thepatent tackle developed defects in practise, and, to crown all, the menpanicked owing to the sudden darkness that fell on them like a clap onthe extinction of the electric light. The port quarter-boat into whichthe girl had been flung had two men in her and was lowered away byPrince Selm, the doctor and the first officer; panic had herded the restof the hands towards the pinnace and forward boats, and the pinnace,over-crowded, was stoved by the sea as soon as she was water-bourne. Theother boats never left their davits, they went with the ship when thedecks opened and the boilers saluted the night with a column of colouredsteam and a clap of thunder that resounded for miles.
The whole tragedy from impact to explosion lasted only seven minutes.
The two men in the boat with the girl had shoved off like demons andtaken to the oars as soon as the falls were released. If they had not,being so short-handed for the size of the boat, they would have beenstoved; as it was they were nearly wrecked by a balk of timber from theexplosion. It missed them by a short two fathoms, drenching them withspray, and then the night shut down pierced by voices, voices of menswimming and crying for help.
The rowers did not know each other. The bow oar shouted to the stern."Is that you Larsen?"
"No, Bompard, and you?"
"La Touche--Row--God! Listen, there's a chap ahead."
The cries ahead ceased, and the boat bumped on something that dudderedaway under it and sank.
"He's gone, whoever he is," cried Bompard. "No use hunting for him.Listen, there's more." Voices shrill and voices bubbling came throughthe blackness from here and from there. The men tried to locate them androwed now in this direction, now in that--always wrong. Once a voicesudden and shrill and close to the boat cried "A moi," and at the sameinstant Bompard's oar struck something, but they found nothing, thevoice had ceased.
They could see, now, the waves like spectres evolving themselves fromthe night, a vision touching the very limit of dimness, and now as theyentered a mist patch--nothing. The voices to port and starboard wereceasing, one by one--being blotted out. Then silence fell, broken onlyby the sound of the oars. La Touche shouted and shouted again, but therecame no response. Then came Bompard's voice. "Is that hooker gone, too?"
"Curse her, yes. I was the lookout. Sailing without lights."
"This woman seems dead."
"It's the girl. I heard her squeal out as they hove her in. Let her lie.Well, this is a start."
"A black job, but we're out of it, so far."
"Ay, as far as we've got--as far as we've got. Well, there's no userowing, there's no sea to hurt her, let her toss."
The oars came in and the fellows slithered from their seats on to thebottom boards. Ballasted so the boat rode easy. They lay like shiveringdogs, grumbling and cursing and then, as they lay, the talk went on.
"Mon Dieu! What a thing--but we've grub and water all right."
"Ay, the boats are all right for that."
There was a long silence and then La Touche began in a high complainingvoice:
"I was lookout, but it was not my fault, that I swear. I saw nothingtill a big three-master broke out of the smother making to cross ourbows, no lights shewing, snoring along asleep. Then I shouted. Thebridge had seen her too and put the engines full speed ahead. They'dmistaken the distance, thought to clear her. I got aft. Hadn't reachedthe port alley way when the smash came. It was all the fault of thosefools on the bridge."
"Who knows," came Bompard's voice. "Things happen and what is to be mustbe. Well, they're all gone a hundred fathoms deep and here we aredrifting about with a dead woman. I'd sooner have any other cargo if Iwas given my choice."
"Sure she's dead?"
"Ay, she's dead sure enough by the way she's lying, not a breath inher."
Neither man suggested that she should be cast over. She ballasted theboat, and for Bompard she was something to lean against.
The French mercantile marine is divided into two great classes, thenortherners and southerners. The man from the north is a Ponantaise, theman from the south a Moco.
Bompard was a Moco, La Touche a Ponantaise. They talked and talked,repeating themselves, cursing the "hooker," the Bridge and thesteersman. Once La Touche, grown hysterical, seemed choking againsttears.
Then after a while, conversation died out. They had nothing more to talkabout. The boat rode easy. There was nothing to do, and these men bluntto life and sea-hardened so that to them all things came in the hour'swork, nodded off, La Touche curled up in the bow, Bompard with hisgrizzled head on the breast of Mademoiselle de Bromsart.