The Mutiny of the Elsinore

shreds of a flying cloud drove away from before it.  In vain I looked for any land.

“Main-braces!—all of you!—jump!” Mr. Pike shouted, himself leading the rush along the poop.  And the men really rushed.  Not in all the months I had observed them had I seen such swiftness of energy.

I made my way to the wheel, where Tom Spink stood.  He did not notice me.  With one hand holding the idle wheel, he was leaning out to one side, his eyes fixed in a fascinated stare.  I followed its direction, on between the chart-house and the port-jigger shrouds, and on across a mountain sea that was very vague in the moonlight.  And then I saw it!  The Elsinore’s stern was flung skyward, and across that cold ocean I saw land—black rocks and snow-covered slopes and crags.  And toward this land the Elsinore , now almost before the wind, was driving.

From the ’midship-house came the snarls of the mate and the cries of the sailors.  They were pulling and hauling for very life.  Then came Mr. Pike, across the poop, leaping with incredible swiftness, sending his snarl before him.

“Ease that wheel there!  What the hell you gawkin’ at?  Steady her as I tell you.  That’s all you got to do!”

From for’ard came a cry, and I knew Mr. Mellaire was on top of the for’ard-house and managing the fore- yards.

“Now!”—from Mr. Pike.  “More spokes!  Steady!  Steady!  And be ready to check her!”

He bounded away along the poop again, shouting for men for the mizzen-braces.  And the men appeared, some of his watch, others of the second mate’s watch, routed from sleep—men coatless, and hatless, and bootless; men ghastly-faced with fear but eager for once to spring to the orders of the man who knew and could save their miserable lives from miserable death.  Yes—and I noted the delicate-handed cook, and Yatsuda, the sail-maker, pulling with his one unparalysed hand.  It was all hands to save ship, and all hands knew it.  Even Sundry Buyers, who had drifted aft in his stupidity instead of being for’ard with his own officer, forebore to stare about and to press his abdomen.  For the nonce he pulled like a youngling of twenty.

The moon covered again, and it was in darkness that the Elsinore rounded up on the wind on the starboard tack.  This, in her case, under lower-topsails only, meant that she lay eight points from the wind, or, in land terms, at right angles to the wind.

Mr. Pike was splendid, marvellous.  Even as the Elsinore was rounding to on the wind, while the head-yards were still being braced, and even as he was watching the ship’s behaviour and the wheel, in between his commands to Tom Spink of “A spoke!  A spoke or two!  Another!  Steady!  Hold her!  Ease her!” he was ordering the men aloft to loose sail.  I had thought, the manoeuvre of wearing achieved, that we were saved, but this setting of all three upper-topsails unconvinced me.

The moon remained hidden, and to leeward nothing could be seen.  As each sail was set, the Elsinore was pressed farther and farther over, and I realized that there was plenty of wind left, despite the fact that the gale had broken or was breaking.  Also, under this additional canvas, I could feel the Elsinore moving through the water.  Pike now sent the Maltese Cockney to help Tom Spink at the wheel.  As for himself, he took his stand beside the booby-hatch, where he could gauge the Elsinore , gaze to leeward, and keep his eye on the helmsmen.

“Full and by,” was his reiterated command.  “Keep her a good full—a rap-full; but don’t let her fall away.  Hold her to it, and drive her.”

He took no notice whatever of me, although I, on my way to the lee of the chart-house, stood at his shoulder a full minute, offering him a chance to speak.  He knew I was there, for his big shoulder brushed my arm as he swayed and turned to warn the helmsmen in the one breath to hold her up to it but to keep her full.  He had neither time nor courtesy for a passenger in such a moment.

Sheltering by the chart-house, I saw the moon appear.  It grew brighter and brighter, and I saw the land, dead to leeward of us, not three hundred yards away.  It was a cruel sight—black rock and bitter snow, with cliffs so perpendicular that the Elsinore could have laid alongside of them in deep water, with great gashes and fissures, and with great surges thundering and spouting along all the length of it.

Our predicament was now clear to me.  We had to weather the bight of land and islands into which we had drifted, and sea and wind worked directly on shore.  The only way out was to drive through the water, to drive fast and hard, and this was borne in upon me by Mr. Pike bounding past to the break of the poop, where I heard him shout to Mr. Mellaire to set the mainsail.

Evidently the second mate was dubious, for the next cry of Mr. Pike’s was:

“Damn the reef!  You’d be in hell first!  Full mainsail!  All hands to it!”

The difference was appreciable at once when that huge spread of canvas opposed the wind.  The Elsinore fairly leaped and quivered as she sprang to it, and I could feel her eat to windward as she at the same time drove faster ahead.  Also, in the rolls and gusts, she was forced down till her lee-rail buried and the sea foamed level across to her hatches.  Mr. Pike watched her like a hawk, and like certain death he watched the Maltese Cockney and Tom Spink at the wheel.

“Land on the lee bow!” came a cry from for’ard, that was carried on from mouth to mouth along the bridge to the poop.

I saw Mr. Pike nod his head grimly and sarcastically.  He had already seen it from the lee-poop, and what he had not seen he had guessed.  A score of times I saw him test the weight of the gusts on his cheek and with all the brain of him study the Elsinore’s behaviour.  And I knew what was in his mind.  Could she carry what she had?  Could she carry more?

Small wonder, in this tense passage of time, that I had forgotten the Samurai.  Nor did I remember him until the chart-house door swung open and I caught him by the arm.  He steadied and swayed beside me, while he watched that cruel picture of rock and snow and spouting surf.

“A good full!” Mr. Pike snarled.  “Or I’ll eat your heart out.  God damn you for the farmer’s hound you are, Tom Spink!  Ease her!  Ease her!  Ease her into the big ones, damn you!  Don’t let her head fall off!  Steady!  Where in hell did you learn to steer?  What cow-farm was you raised on?”

Here he bounded for’ard past us with those incredible leaps of his.

“It would be good to set the mizzen-topgallant,” I heard Captain West mutter in a weak, quavery voice.  “Mr. Pathurst, will you please tell Mr. Pike to set the mizzen-topgallant?”

And at that very instant Mr. Pike’s voice rang out from the break of the poop:

“Mr. Mellaire!—the mizzen-topgallant!”

Captain West’s head drooped until his chin rested on his breast, and so low did he mutter that I leaned to hear.

“A very good officer,” he said.  “An excellent officer.  Mr. Pathurst, if you will kindly favour me, I should like to go in.  I . . . I haven’t got on my boots.”

The muscular feat was to open the heavy iron door and hold it open in the rolls and plunges.  This I accomplished; but when I had helped Captain West across the high threshold he thanked me and waived further services.  And I did not know even then he was dying.

Never was a Blackwood ship driven as was the Elsinore during the next half-hour.  The full-jib was also set, and, as it departed in shreds, the fore-topmast staysail was being hoisted.  For’ard of the ’midship-house it was made unlivable by the bursting seas.  Mr. Mellaire, with half the crew, clung on somehow on top the ’midship-house, while the rest of the crew was with us in the comparative safety of the poop.  Even Charles Davis, drenched and shivering, hung on beside me to the brass ring-handle of the chart-house door.

Such sailing!  It was a madness of speed and motion, for the Elsinore drove over and through and under those huge graybeards that thundered shore-ward.  There were times, when rolls and gusts worked against her at the same moment, when I could have sworn the ends of her lower-yardarms swept the sea.

It was one chance in ten that we could claw off.  All knew it, and all knew there was nothing more to do but await the issue.  And we waited in silence.  The only voice was that of the mate, intermittently cursing, threatening, and ordering Tom Spink and the Maltese Cockney at the wheel.  Between whiles, and all the while, he gauged the gusts, and ever his eyes lifted to the main-topgallant-yard.  He wanted to set that one more sail.  A dozen times I saw him half-open his mouth to give the order he dared not give.  And as I watched him, so all watched him.  Hard-bitten, bitter-natured, sour-featured and snarling-mouthed, he was the one man, the henchman of the race, the master of the moment.  “And where,” was my thought, “O where was the Samurai?”