The Adventures of Billy Topsail

  CHAPTER XXIX

  _Billy Topsail is Shipped Upon Conditions, and the Dictator, in a Rising Gale, is Caught in a Field of Drift Ice, with a Growler to Leeward_

  "WHERE'D you come aboard, b'y?" Captain Hand demanded.

  "Long Tom, sir."

  "Who shipped you?"

  "I stowed away in a bunker, sir."

  "You're from Ruddy Cove?" said the captain.

  "Yes, sir. Me name's Billy, an' me father's a Labrador fisherman. Sure,I've sailed t' the French Shore, sir, an' I'm a handy lad t' work, sir."

  "Billy what?"

  "Topsail, sir."

  The captain raised his eyebrows; then dropped them, and stared atthe boy. He had been before the mast with old Tom Topsail on a SouthAmerican barque in years long gone.

  "You'll work hard, b'y," said he, severely, for he had been botheredwith stowaways for thirty years, "an' I'll ship you regular, if you doyour duty. If you don't," and here the captain frowned tremendously,"I'll have you thrashed at the post at Long Tom, an' you'll have noshare with the crew in the cargo."

  "Ay, sir," said Billy, gladly. "Sure, I'll stand by it, sir."

  When the captain turned his back, out came the belated chorus, withyoung Billy Topsail leading:

  "Sure, the chain 'e parted, An' the schooner drove ashoare, An' the wives o' the 'ands Never saw un any moare. No moare! Never saw un any mo-o-o-are!"

  "If he's like his dad," the captain chuckled to Archie, as they mountedto the deck, "his name will be on the ship's books before the v'y'ge isover, sure enough."

  It appeared from the bridge that the gale was venting the utmost of itsforce. The wind had veered a point or two to the north, and was drivingout of the darkness a vast field of broken ice. This, close packed andgrinding, was bearing down swiftly. It threatened to block the ship'scourse--if not to surround her, take hold of her, and sweep her away.In the northeast, dead over the bows, there loomed a great white mass,a berg, grandly towering, with its peaks hidden in black, scuddingclouds. Beyond, and on either side, patches of white, vanishing andreappearing, disclosed the whereabouts of other bergs.

  "I was thinkin' about slowin' down," said the mate, when the captainhad scanned the prospect ahead.

  With that, some part of Archie's alarm returned. It continued with him,while the captain moved the lever of the signal box until the indicatormarked half speed, while the ship lost way, and the engines throbbed,as though alive and breathing hard.

  "Report, sir!"

  This was Bill o' Burnt Bay, down from the crow's-nest, with his beardfrozen to his jacket and icicles hanging from his shaggy eyebrows.

  "Well?"

  "They's a big field o' ice bearin' down with the wind. 'Tis heavy,an' comin' fast, an' 'tis stretchin' as far as I can see. They's fivegood-sized bergs ahead, sir, with pan ice all about them. An'----"

  "Growlers?" sharply.

  "An' they's a big growler off the port bow. 'Twill soon be dead t'leeward, if we keeps this course."

  Bill o' Burnt Bay lumbered down the ladder and made for the forecastleto thaw out. Meantime, the captain devoted himself to giving thegrowler a wide berth; for a growler is a berg which trembles on theverge of toppling over, and he had no wish to be caught between it andthe advancing floe. He had once lost a schooner that way; the adventurewas one of his most vivid recollections.

  "We'll have t' get out o' this, Mr. Ackell," he said, "or we may getbadly nipped. We'll tie up t' the first steady berg we come to. Here,b'y," sharply, to Archie, "you'll not go t' bed for a while. Keep nearme--but keep out o' the way."

  "Ay, ay, sir!"

  "Turn out all hands!"

  The cry of "All hands on deck!" was passed fore and aft. It ran throughthe ship like an alarm. The men trooped from below, wondering what hadoccasioned it. Once on deck, a swift glance into the driving nightapprised these old sealers of the situation. They placed the ice hooksand tackle in handy places; for the work in hand was plain enough.

  The ship was swinging wide of the growler, against which the wind beatwith mighty force. A vast surface was exposed to the gale; and uponevery square foot a varying pressure was exerted. As the vessel drewnearer, Archie could see the iceberg yield and sway. It was evidentthat its submerged parts had been melted and worn until the equilibriumof the whole was nearly overset. A sudden, furious gust might turn thescale; and in that event a near-by vessel would surely be overwhelmed.

  Captain Hand kept a watchful eye on the ice pack, which had now comewithin a hundred fathoms, and was hurrying upon the advancing ship.The vessel was between the floe and the growler: a situation not tobe escaped, as the captain had foreseen. The danger was clear: if therush of the floe should be too great for the steamer to withstand, shewould be swept, broadside on, against the berg, which, being of greaterweight and depth, moved sluggishly. Stout as she was, she could notsurvive the collision.

  The captain turned her bow to the pack; then he signalled full speedahead. There was a moment of waiting.

  "Grab the rail, b'y," said the captain.

  "Ay, ay, sir!"

  The floe divided before the ship; the shock was hardly perceptible. Fora moment, where, at the edge, the ice was loose, she maintained herspeed. But the floe thickened. The fragments were packed tight. It wasas though the face of the sea were covered with a solid sheet of ice,lying ahead as far as sight carried into the night. The ship laboured.Her speed diminished, gradually, but perceptibly--vividly so! Herprogress was soon at the rate of half speed. In a moment it was evenslower than that. Would it stop altogether?

  Archie was on the port side of the bridge. The captain walked over tohim and slapped him heartily on the back.

  "Well, b'y," he cried, "how do you like the sealin' v'y'ge?"

  That was a clever thought of the captain! Here was a man in desperatecase who could await the issue in light patience. The boy took heart atthe thought of it; and he needed that encouragement.

  "I knew what it was when I started," he replied, with a gulp.

  "Will she make it, think you?"

  Another clever ruse of this great heart! He wanted the boy to have apart in the action. Archie felt the blood stirring in his veins onceagain.

  "She's pretty near steady, sir, I think," he replied, after a pause.

  The two leaned over the rail and looked intently at the ice sweepingpast.

  "Are we losing, sir?" asked the boy.

  "I think we're holdin' our own," said the captain, elatedly.

  The boy turned to the great growler, now vague of outline in the dark.The ice floe had swept over the limit of vision. He wondered if ithad struck the base of the berg. Then all at once the heap of cloudywhite swayed forth and back before his eyes. For a moment it was likea gigantic curtain waving in the wind. It vanished of a sudden. Amountain of broken water shot up in its place--as high as its topmostpinnacle had been; and, following close upon its fall, another berg,with a worn outline, reared itself, dripping streams of water.

  Thus far there had been no sound; but the sound beat its way againstthe wind, at last, and it was a thunderous noise--"like the growlin' ofa million dogs," the captain said afterwards. The growler had capsized.

  "Look!" the boy cried, overcome.

  "Turned turtle, ain't she?" remarked the skipper, calmly.

  "The pack might have carried us near it!"

  "Oh," said the captain, lightly, "but it didn't. She's a good ship, the_Dictator_. What's more," he added, "she's makin' her way right throughthe pack."

  Another berg had taken form over the port quarter. The captain shapeda course for it, eyeing it carefully as he drew near. It was low--nothigher than the ship's spars--and broad, with the impression ofstability strong upon it.

  "See that berg, b'y?" said the captain. "Well," decisively, "we'll liein the lee o' that in half an hour. You see, b'y," he went on, "thewind makes small bother for a solid berg. It whips the pan ice along,easy enough, but the bergs float their own way, quiet as you p
lease. Inthe lee of every big fellow like that, there's open water. We'll liethere, tied up, till mornin'."

  In half an hour, the ship broke from the ice into the lee of the berg.The floe raced past under the force of the gale, which left the lee airand water untouched by its violence. Skillful seamanship brought thevessel broadside to the ice. A wild commotion ensued: orders roaredfrom the bridge, signal bells, the shouts of the line men, the hiss ofsteam, and the churning of the screw. Archie saw young Billy Topsailscramble to the ice like a cat, with the first line in his hand: thenBill o' Burnt Bay and half a dozen others, with axes and hooks.

  In twenty minutes the engines were at rest, the ship was lying like alog in a mill pond, the watch paced the deck in solitude, and ArchibaldArmstrong was asleep in his berth in the captain's cabin--dreaming thatthe mate was wrong and the captain right: that the gale had abated inthe night, and the morning had broken sunny.