David W. Bone

“ Clearing our motes, we turn a purged and critical eye on our fellows, now all clear of the mist, and steaming in sight. To far astern, where the land lies and the sun plays on wet roof and flashing window-pane, a long line of ships snakes out in procession, their smoke blowing and curling merrily alee to join the cumulus of the foundering fog-banks. There are gaps and kinks in our formation that would, perhaps, call for angry signals in a line of battle, but the laggards are closing up in hasty order to right the wayward tricks of sound and distance in the fog. ”

“ The Dog-star is high over the mizzen truck, and Canopus, clear of the weather backstays, is a friend to a drowsy helmsman. The Southern Cross is clearing the sea-line, and above it many-eyed Argus keeps watch over the Pole. Old friends, all of them, companions of many a night watch on leagues of lonely sea. A glow to the eastward marks where the dawn will break, and the fleecy trade-clouds about the horizon are already assuming shape and colour. There the stars are paling, but a planet, Jupiter, perhaps, stands out in brilliance on the fast lightening sky. ”

“ The evidence is there for all to judge. The seaway is foul with wrecks, foundered on beach and sandbar—the tide vexed by under-water obstructions. Topmast spars with whitened cordage whipping in the wind stand out above the swirl of the tides; a shattered bow-section or gaunt listed shell of a wrecked vessel sets the turn to a new shoal drift; crazy funnels, twisted and arake by the broken hulls below, stud the angles of the buoyage that marks the fairway. Disaster to our shipping is plainly shewn, grouped in a way that no figures or statistics could rival. ”

“ The tugs straighten us up in the river, and we breast the flood cautiously, for the mist has not yet cleared and the coasting skippers are taking risks to get to their berths before the stevedores have picked their men. In the shipyards workmen are beginning their day's toil, the lowe of their flares light up the gaunt structures of ships to be. Sharp at the last wailing note of the whistle, the din of strenuous work begins, and we are fittingly drummed down the reaches to a merry tune of clanging hammers—the shipyard chorus "Let Glasgow flourish!" ”

“ We should be able to shove along at better speed when daylight comes. The mist or the haze or whatever combination it may be, is puzzling. From the outlook it is not easy to gauge the range of our vision. Near us the wash from our bows is sharply defined by phosphorescence in the broken water, a white scum churns and curls alongside, brightening suddenly in patches as though our passage had set spark to the fringe. Outboard the open sea merges away into the gloomy sky with no horizon, no ruling of a division. We seem to be steaming into a vertical face of vapour. ”

“ In the great Bay, many ships lay anchored, head to wind, at straining cables. Laden ships with trim spars and rigging, red-rusty of hull, and lifting at every scend to the rough sea, the foul green underbody of long voyaging; tall clippers, clean and freshly painted without, but showing, in disorder of gear and rigging, the mark of the hastily equipped outward bound coasters, steam and sail, plunging and fretting at short anchor or riding to the swell in sheltered creeks; lumbermen, with high deck loads bleached and whitened by wind and salt-spume of a winter passage ”

“ On deck there is an inclination to move quietly, to preserve a silence in keeping with the weird spell that seems to environ us. There is no longer chatter and small talk among the duty troops; they sit about, huddled in glistening ponchos, peering out at the ghostly glow on the water. From far down in the bowels of the ship the rattle of a stoker's shovel on the plates rings out in startling clamour, and rouses an instant desire to suppress the jarring note. It seems impossible that there can be ships in our company—vessels moving with us through mystic seas. ”

“ The barque was labouring unsteadily, with a long westerly swell—the ghost of the Cape Horn 'greybeards '—running under her in oily ridges.
It needed but a bite of freshening wind to rouse the sea; at the lash of a sudden gale the 'greybeards' would be at us again—whelming and sweeping. Even in quiet mood they were loath to let us go north, and we jarred and rattled, rolled, lurched, and wallowed as they hove at us. Heave as they did, we were still able to make way on our course, standing with yards in to the quartering wind and all plain sail on her. ”

“ The bay, that but a day ago lay broad and silent and empty, now seems to narrow its proportions as each high-sided merchantman comes in; the hills draw nearer with every broad hull that anchors, wind-rode, in the blue of the bay. As if in key with the illusion, the broad expanse of shallow, inshore water, [191] that before gave distance to the hills, now sheds its power, cut and furrowed as it becomes by thrash and wake of tugs and launches all making out to serve the larger vessels.
On the high mound of the harbour-master's look-out, keen eyes note all movements in the bay. ”

“ The clearing of our outlook produces a curious confusion to the eye. We have become accustomed to a limited range in sight, and the sudden change to distant vision, in which there is no standard of position, no mark to judge by, effects an illusion as of a photographer's plate developing. Fragments, wisps, and sections of the sea-rim appear, breaking through as the fog lifts, and seeming strangely high and foreign in position. Topmasts and a funnel-wreath of black smoke loom up almost in mid-air; the water-line of a ship's hull grows to sight, low in the plane as though dangerously close. ”

“ On a near beacon a tide gauge shows the water, and when sail is furled and the yards in harbour trim we have naught to do but reckon our wages, and watch the rising water lapping, inch by inch, on the figured board. From seaward there is little to be seen of the countryside. The land about is low to the coast, but far inland blue, mist-capped ranges stand bold and rugged against the clear northern sky. Beyond the Bar the harbour lies bare of shipping—only a few fishing skiffs putting out under long sweeps, and the channel buoys bobbing and heaving on the long swell. ”

“ With some fathoms to spare we sheer over the thrash of her propellers, the horizon runs a line across our stem, we have clear yielding blue water under the bows!
The illusion of our sole movement is reversed as the mass of the other vessel bears away from us. The unbroken sea-line offers no further mark to judge our swing; we seem to have become suddenly as immobile as a pier-head, while our neighbour starts from our forefoot in an apparent outrush, closing and opening the line of her masts and funnels like shutting and throwing wide the panels of a door. ”

“ A few more powerful heaves with the seaman-like poise between each—"Spent my mo-ney on Sa-lley Brown!"—and the shout comes, "Anchor's a-weigh!"
Down comes the Blue Peter from the fore, whipping at shroud and backstay in quick descent—our barque rides ground-free, the voyage begun!
The light is broad over all now, and the Highland hills loom dark and misty to the norr'ard. With a catch at the heart, we pass the well-known places, slowly making way, as if the flood-tide were striving still to hold us in our native waters. A Customs boat hails, and asks of us, "Whither bound?" "'Frisco away!" ”

“ He reports a submarine in sight—broad on the port bow. The circle of our telescope shows the clean-cut horizon ruling a thread on the monotint of sea and sky. Sweeping the round, a grey pinnacle leaps into the field of view. It is over-distant for ready recognition. Only by close scrutiny, observing a hair-line that rises and falls on either side of the grey upstanding point, are we able to recognize our enemy. He is pressing on at full speed, trusting to our casual look-out, that he may secure a favourable position to submerge and attack. ”

“ We are in the south-east trades; a gentle breeze, and all sail set. Aloft, the ghostly canvas stands out against a star-studded sky, and the masthead trucks sway in a stately circle as we heave on the light swell. She is steering easily, asking nothing but a spoke or two when a fluttering tremor on the weather leach of the royals shows that she is nearing the wind. The light in the binnacle is dim and spluttering, the glass smoke-blackened, and one can but see the points on the compass card. South sou'-west, she heads, swinging a little west at times, but making a good course. ”

“ It drops down to us; we sheer aside and slow a pace, and it lingers and dallies sportively abeam. It slips suddenly ahead, with a rush and a rip, as though, like a child among the daisies, it recalls a parent in advance.
The trumpeter astern has come up and sighted our wake and fog-buoy, and the clamour of her questing syren is stilled. She looms up close on our quarter, a huge menacing bulk of sheering steel with the foam thundering under her bows and curling and shattering on her grey hull. They have great difficulty in adjusting to our speed. ”

“ Down the deserted wind-swept streets we drive steadily on, till house lights glinting behind the blinds and hurrying figures of a 'night-shift' show that we are near the river and the docks. A turn along the waterside, the dim outlines of the ships and tracery of mast and spar looming large and fantastic in the darkness, and the driver, questioning, brings up at a dim-lit shed, bare of goods and cargo—the berth of a full-laden outward-bounder. My barque—the Florence, of Glasgow—lies in a corner of the dock, ready for sea. ”

“ They are ill content with the vile weather and their job in the open, where the rain lashes down pitilessly, soaking their working clothes. Doubtless they envy the dry divers their suits of proofed rubber, when they are called on to manhandle the heavy timber shores from the mud and litter of the dockside and launch them out towards the steel sides of the settling vessels. There the tide-workers on deck secure them by lanyards, and the spars hang in even order, sighted on doublings of the plates, ready to pin the ships on a steady keel when the water drains away. ”

“ Quickly done, the great mainsail blew out, thrashing furiously till steadied by tack and sheet. Then topgal'n' sail, the spars buckling to overstrain; staysail, spanker—never was canvas crowded on a ship at such a pace; a mighty fear at our hearts that only frenzied action could allay.
Shuddering, she lay down to it, the lee rail entirely awash, the decks canted at a fearsome angle; then righted—a swift, vicious lurch, and her head sweeping wildly to windward till checked by the heaving helmsman. The wind that we had thought moderate when running before it now held at half a gale. ”

“ If our ways had become peaceful in the long years of unchallenged trading, our habits were never less than combatant throughout a life of struggle with storm and tide. Not while we had a ship and a man to the helm would we be driven from the sea; our hard-won heritage was not to be delivered under threat or operation of even the most surpassing frightfulness. Jealousy for our seafaring, for our name as sailors, forbade that we should skulk in harbour or linger behind the nets and booms. ”