T. Jenkins Hains

“ One man, who shivered as he spoke, insisted upon crawling about and shifting his position. Smith struck him over the head, knocking him senseless. Another, a woman, must stand upon the thwarts, to get as far away as possible from the dread and icy element about her. He swung his fist upon her jaw, and she went whimpering down into the boat's bottom, lying there and sobbing softly.
Furiously swearing at the herd of helpless passengers who endangered his boat at every movement, he swung the craft's head about and stood gazing at his ship. ”

“ Andersen went on duty with a queer look in his eyes. He had seen something and it amazed him—just why I never could tell, for he had been in steamers before and ought to have known something of a ship's officers' duties before coming into the Prince Line.
The truth in many lines is sacred. Absolutely sacred. Too sacred entirely to shift about the deck like a bag of dunnage and leave lying around for some fools to play with. No, never play with the truth in some lines of shipping. ”

“ With heads down, gasping for breath, Boldwin and myself gripped the bridge rail. The flying atmosphere tore past us. We dared not loose our grasp for an instant, and to get back to the shelter of the pilot house was impossible without following the iron rail aft.
After a thunderous rush of quick and vicious squalls, there was a sudden lull. A giant comber showed ahead, and its white and foaming crest lifted clear into the night. She buried her whole forward deck, and, as the water cleared, we could see about us. ”

“ All discipline seemed to end in the shock and struggle. Brownson howled and stormed from the bridge, and Smith shouted orders and sprang down to enforce them. The chief mate came on deck in his underclothes and passed the word to man the boats. A thousand passengers jammed the companionway and strove with panic and inhuman fury to reach the deck.
One man clad in a night robe gained the outside of the press, and, running swiftly along the deck, flitted like a ghost over the rail, and disappeared into the sea. ”

“ Brownson was sure now—he felt that Smith knew all.
But he put the revolver in his pocket. He would not fire yet.
The ship was listing heavily, and the cries of the passengers were dying out. All who had been able to get away had gone, somehow, and only a few desperate men and women, who could not swim and who were cool enough to realize that swimming would but prolong an agony that was better over quickly, huddled aft at the taffrail. They would take the last second left them, the last instant of life, and suffer a thousand deaths every second to get it. It was absurd. Brownson pitied them. ”

“ Brownson wondered at this. They were young enough and strong enough to make a fight for life.
A whistling roar, arose above all other sounds. The siren had ceased, and Brownson knew the air was rushing from below. The ship would drop in a moment. He grasped the pistol again. He dreaded that last plunge, that drop into the void below. The thought held him a little. The ocean was always so blue out there, so clear and apparently bottomless, a great void of water. He wondered at the depth, what kind of a dark bed would receive that giant fabric, the work of so many human hands. ”

“ The ship was going down.
Brownson stood upon the bridge and gazed down at the human tide below him. Men fought furiously for places in the small boats. The fireroom crew came on deck and mingled with the passengers. The coal dust showed upon their white faces, making them seem strange beings from an inferno that was soon to be abolished. They strove for places in the lifeboats and hurled the weaker passengers about recklessly. Some, on the other hand, helped the women. One man dragged two women with him into a boat, kicking, twisting, and roaring like a lion. ”

“ Death was always for others. It had never been for him. He had seen men die. It was not for him yet. He would not believe it. He would awaken soon, and the steward would bring him his coffee.
Then he caught the eye of Smith again in that boat waiting for the end out there. His heart gave an immense jolt, began beating wildly. The ship heeled more and more. The ice crashed and plunged from her forward. Brownson was awakening to the real at last. ”

“ The cries of men came faintly through the uproar from forward, and this was followed almost instantly by frantic shrieks from aft as the effect of the shock was felt by the women passengers.
The liner had failed to clear, and, swinging too late to port, had cut slantingly into the other ship's quarter and tore away the greater part of her stern. Tearing, grinding, ripping, and snapping, the huge shapes ground alongside for a few moments as their headway took them along without reducing speed. Too late the reversing engines, too late the telegraph for all speed astern. ”

“ The silence grew as the headway subsided.
The captain listened intently. He felt something.
There is always that strange something that a seaman feels in the presence of great danger when awake. It has never been explained. But all good—really good—masters have felt it; can tell you of it if they will. It is uncanny, but it is as true as gospel. The second officer had felt it in the air, felt it in his nerves. He felt—ice. It was danger.
Smith stood there watching the haze that seemed to deepen rather than disperse as the morning grew. ”

“ Slade was a jealous man, although he was a seaman from clew to earing, and his attentions to Miss Aline were more and more marked as the schooner sped on her course.
"Why shouldn't I get married?" he used to say to me when we had a chance to be together, which was seldom enough. "Why shouldn't I get a wife, and take up the simple life of the farmer? I've been through all the hardness of seagoing, and I'm tired of it. What is a man, after all, if he sticks to it? He gets to be a skipper of some blamed hooker that'll make him a couple of thousand a year when he is too old to enjoy spending it. ”

“ Just then a sea struck us heavily upon the starboard bow, and held her with its rush. The next moment the shape ahead was high upon the crest of a mighty sea, and I recognized the stern of a vessel outlined against the gray pall.
I looked over the side. The foam was lying dead with us, showing we were not going ahead more than a knot or two. Boldwin saw it also, and knew that to slew his ship now would mean to get struck a blow in the side which in that sea would probably prove fatal. He thought of his passengers. They must be considered first. ”

“ The mate watched, and then walked quickly across the stern and watched the wake, wondering what might be taking place. The form of a woman flitted down the gangway from forward, showing dimly in the gloom. She came from the opposite side of the ship from where he had seen the head peer forth. Hiding behind the house, he watched her come quickly aft. She was carrying something in her hand that looked like a life buoy. Instinctively the mate made ready to catch her. He saw that life belt, and to his imagination it spelled something like a person going overboard. ”

“ Poor old Jones, captain of a ten-thousand-ton ship, owner of a quarter [Pg 326] interest in one of the biggest commercial enterprises in the world—six children and a wife starving on forty dollars a month and the seventh child—yes, it was pretty bad, especially bad for Jones, for he had done nothing to deserve his fate, nothing but fight a combination which knew no mercy. The relentless, implacable cruelty of corporations is well enough known to you gentlemen. Their laws are like the laws of Nature—transgress them and you must die. ”

“ Smith was making a fight for their lives, and would not tolerate any hysteria. He smote all who disobeyed with his usual impersonal and rough manner; but the two girls were now too much cowed to give him trouble. They lay in the boat's bottom and wept and sobbed the night long, holding to each other, while the boat tossed high in the air or fell far down the slopes of ugly seas. And all the time the water broke over her low gunwales as she sat well down under her load of living freight. ”

“ Without delay we made our way along the port rail to amidships, where the boats were being lowered. Men crowded around them, and fought for places. The fireroom crew, white-skinned and partly clothed, their pale faces dirty with coal dust, stood around the nearest boat, and worked at the lashings, cursing, swearing, and shoving each other in the suppressed panic of men who are hurrying from death. ”

“ As yet we were outside the Stream, and consequently not in the usual line of the coasters, which are the dread of the liner's officers, for nothing is so uncomfortable as the sudden raising of the dim and sometimes half-extinguished lights of a schooner on a thick night while tearing along before a gale. Having the right of way, the sailing vessel has nothing to do but keep her course, while the steamship, with but a few seconds to spare, swings quickly to pass, sometimes missing a catastrophe by a few feet. A poor red light on such a night cannot be seen twenty fathoms. ”

“ There is absolutely nothing so soul-killing, so fearfully degrading. I prefer the bloodiest fighting always to the cold-blooded lash. I have seen men lose their self-respect under the degrading stroke of the lash; and a man without self-respect had better be dead. I studied the case and remembered his father. He was a small man physically—I never knew a big man make a good seaman; but he could take charge of a ship, no matter what kind of creatures were forward, and he never spoke but once in giving an order. ”

“ We soon had canvas on her aft, and she headed the sea, dropping back from the wreckage to a mooring hawser bent to the standing rigging of the foremast. We got a lashing to the foot of the mast, and she dragged the mass broadside, making a lee of it, and riding easily to the heavy seas, which now took her almost dead on her bows.
When I had a chance to look about me again, the light of the morning had grown to its full height, and we were able to see around us.
The gray light made things look almost hopeless for us. The pumps worked full stroke, and the water gained rapidly on us. ”

“ It came creeping up just under me, up the almost perpendicular deck, and it looked like a big monkey until it came right into me, and then I recognized Komuri, our little steward.
Komuri was yellow, a pasty yellow, and his wrinkled face looked old and haggard. He was only partly dressed, and he clawed the rail frantically for a hand hold. He looked the worst-scared Jap I had ever seen or dreamed of. He climbed close to me.
"Men locked in—all die—ports open," he screeched in my ear. ”

“ Masses of ice fell from her into the sea. The grinding, splashing noise awoke the panic again among the remaining passengers and crew. They strove with maniac fury to get the rafts and other stuff that might float over the side. Two boats drew away full to the gunwales with people. The air below began to make that peculiar whistling sound that tells of pressure—pressure upon the vitals of the ship. ”

“ He was amazed at the sight of a young woman who came forth from the room and whisked herself quickly down the deck and out of sight. Such a thing as a woman in the master's room at that hour was enough to excite Mr. Jameson. He had not been on the ship long, and the captain was new to him. Masters naturally had love affairs as well as sailors, but they were generally careful about being caught. Here Junard had asked him to call him when they sighted Castle Rock, and, as he knew they must do this by five, at least, the mate was puzzled to see a woman leaving the captain's room when he knocked. ”

“ I tried to make myself think that I was in no danger at all; that all would be well when Rokeby came down, and got a hold of the safe. But I knew in my heart that the men above, the whole general crew, were not the men to help.
As a record of fact, the men above were awed at the disaster, and only Rokeby's steadiness saved my life. He had the pumps kept going, and finally decided that he would have to take a chance down there, or let me die like a hooked fish. He was man enough to overcome the nerve-shaking dangers that had beset us, and he put on another suit. ”

“ We came into port four days later with Boldwin on the bridge, his face lined and haggard. Below, thirty thousand dollars' worth of bananas slushed about in a ghastly mess, in spite of the pens and shorings. But the passengers were happy. Women in gay dresses came on deck and smiled and chatted, and children romped and played. The captain did not look at me—he had not since the collision—but he spoke to me for the first time. ”

“ We were going some, probably twelve or fifteen knots an hour; and right ahead was nothing—that is, nothing we could see; just a black wall of darkness.
Vainly I tried to make out the light of the coming morning; but the snow squalls shut off everything. Pete, sharp-eyed fellow of my watch, was on lookout on the forecastle head. I knew Pete's eyes were the best ever, but he could see nothing in that wild gale of snow and sleet and inky darkness. I went to the break of the poop again, and hailed the deck below. ”

“ Smith debated his chances within himself. He scorned to ask his men, for he had seen much ice before in his seagoing. To remain near the berg was to miss a ship possibly; but to row far off was to miss fresh water. He had come away without either food or water, owing to the furious panic. He knew very well that, within a few hours at most, the famished folk in his boat would rave for a drink. They must have water, at least, even if they must do without food.
The iceberg lay right in the path of ships, as his own had proved, the liner running upon the great circle from New York to Liverpool. ”

“ If it had been blowing before while we were running, it was now a blast.
The Prince Alfred laid down her whole five hundred feet of steel side into that sea, and the crash of the mighty hill that swept her shook her [Pg 275] as though she had been struck amidships by the ram of a battleship. The forward funnel guys parted, and I had a momentary glimpse of a great pillar of iron going over the side to leeward. Then she began to head the sea, and no human could face the storm of flying water which swept the bridge. ”

“ The ship still hung by her after bulkhead, and Lord knows the man who set it in her deserves praise enough. How it stood that strain is a wonder to this day. If there had been any sea running she would have gone down like a stone, for no unbraced cross-section of a ship can stand the surge of ten thousand tons in a seaway. It must have burst like blotting paper when wetted down. With ten men—all second-class passengers—in my boat besides the crew, I went back to the ship for the last time, and watched old man Hall as he stood upon the bridge. ”