Gangplank

“ If there are persons out in the rain why don’t you ask them to come aboard out of the storm? Ponto, run out the gangplank!”
“Yas, sah, right away, sah!”
There was a creaking of ropes and the rumble of a plank being hauled across the deck.
“Excuse me,” spoke the one who had been called Rose, addressing the three boys and the professor. “Won’t you come aboard out of the wet?”
“Thank you, I believe we will,” answered Jerry, and, as the plank which the negro thrust out touched the bank Jerry stepped on it, followed by his chums and Mr. Snodgrass. ”

“ So that settled Bishop, and he had to walk up the gangplank with the rest of us. He looked just as pleased as if they'd lost his laundry.
I checked the baggage and sent the three o' them up on deck, sayin' I'd join 'em later. Then I ast a boy where the bar was.
"Right in there," he says, pointin'. "But you can't get nothin' till we're three miles out."
So I went back to the gangplank and started off the boat. A man about four years old, with an addin' machine in his hand, stopped me.
"Are you goin' to make the trip?" he ast me. ”

“ H.M.S. Vindictive had to be fitted with a special deck from which gangways could be extended to bridge the gulf between the ship and the top of the twenty-nine-foot wall. For this purpose she was given {78} a large number of gangways poised at an angle of about forty-five degrees from the ship's side. The idea was that on arriving alongside the Mole, the gangways would be lowered till they rested on the top of the wall. The storming parties, at a prearranged signal, should run out along the gangways and jump down to the parapet pathway four feet below the wall top. ”

“ The gangway also had a railing on each of its long sides as high as a man’s knee. At its extremity was fastened an iron object like a pestle pointed at one end and with a ring at the other end, so that the whole looked like the machine for pounding corn. To this ring was attached a rope with which, when the ship charged an enemy, they raised the ravens by means of the pulley on the pole and let them down on the enemy’s deck, sometimes from the prow and sometimes bringing them round when the ships collided broadsides. ”

“ On the further side towered the bulwarks of a great ship, with gangways reaching down to the pier.
In some mysterious way order reigned and speed was observed.
Line after line of uniformed men passed up the gangways and vanished.
Lights were on the ship, yet dim enough to be in keeping with the
night's mystery.
Last of all the almost muffled noises of gangways being drawn down on to the piers. Hawsers were cast off. Stealthy tugs hauled the ocean monster out into the stream. ”

“ With the exception of the Manchesters, all the troops were in khaki, and were easily distinguishable from the dark-coloured mass of civilians. Thus there was always a yellow pool of colour in the midst of the black mass, and all the morning a thin yellow line flowed from the pool to the ship's gangway. As often as one looked, during the whole morning, there was a line of men in the act of ascending the gangway. One felt as though one had fallen asleep for a moment and dreamed, and waked again to find the same men in the same position, so little did the appearance of things change. ”

“ Frank, standing wide on the slippery deck, cast his eyes fore and aft with growing wonder at the long, narrow shape of her, at the inward slope of her heavy bulwarks, at the wide, short funnels and sharp bows.
“I can’t liken her to anything but a wasp or a shark,” said he, “there’s such a vicious air about her.”
“Ay, she carries a sting in her tail and a devilish set of teeth. She’s ugly as a shark, and as narrow and vicious as a wasp. Well, what is she?”
“She’s a deuced bad sea boat, anyhow,” said Frank, as the deck suddenly sloped away at a fearful angle. “Is she a yacht?” ”

“ They flock down the gangway while we stand high above, and many good-byes are shouted, and some are tearful and some are quite casual and cheerful. Then the gangway is moved, but just before it goes down with a run there is a shout, and two policemen hurry along the quay hauling two shamefaced-looking men who are hustled up into the ship again. They are stokers who fire the furnaces for the engines far down below in the bowels of the ship. ”

“ After twenty minutes, which seemed as many hours, we reached the vessel. The crew pressing round the gangway cheered when they saw we had brought people from the wreck. Duckling and the skipper watched us grimly from the poop.
"Now then, my lads," I cried, "up with this lady first. Some of you on deck get water ready, as these people are dying of thirst."
In a few minutes, both the girl and the old man were handed over the gangway. I cut the boat's painter adrift from the ringbolt so that we could ship the madman without loosening his bonds, and he was hoisted up like a bale of goods. ”

“ The twelve-pounders let go at the row of lights, and as the smoke rolled away there came a muffled roar, and in an instant, it seemed to Frank, the air was full of shells. The water was cup up astern, and one projectile struck the turtle-backed deck forward, and went humming into the black of the night.
“She carries six guns to the broadside, I think. What do you make it?”
“A dozen, at least, Captain, and heavy metal,” said Frank, wetting his lips.
“No more than six and twelve-pounders. A larger shell sets up a different music, as you will soon learn. ”

“ You can see them now, as they go ashore over the gang plank, if you stand by the deck rail and look down.
A crowd of the strangest looking people pour over the gang plank from the third deck, or steerage. They look like little bits of all the countries you have seen or read about. Few of the women wear hats. They have handkerchiefs or caps or shawls on their heads. They carry babies in their arms, on their hips or their backs. Little children cling to their short, wide skirts. The men and boys carry mountains of queer shaped bundles and boxes and bags, on their heads and shoulders. ”

“ Meanwhile the old Vindictive ran alongside the mole and dropped her eighteen special gangways bang against it. In a moment her forlorn hope—her whole crew was one great forlorn hope—swarmed on to the mole, over the splintering gangways, while her guns roared defiance at the huge German batteries. The ground swell made the Vindictive roll and racked her breaking gangways terribly. The storm of German shells and the hail of machine-gun bullets seemed almost to be sweeping everything before them. An officer awaiting his turn on deck asked, "What are all those men lying down for?" ”

“ All the guns were run over to the larboard side, so that the Gannet's lower-deck ports were within a few inches of the surface of the water, her draught being thereby lessened. Two additional cables were carried from the quarters to opposite sides of the creek, where gangs of negroes were directed to pull their hardest.
It was an anxious time. The capstan clanked slowly round as the main cable tautened and came in foot by foot; the negroes, the sweat glistening on their ebony arms and backs, bent to their task, encouraged or goaded by the shouts of their overseers. ”

“ But a spirit of emulation was aboard, and there was no cursing or driving; every man therefore did his best to reduce the chaos on deck to something like order. The huge cases were split open one after the other, the spermaceti baled out and passed into tanks below, and as each was scraped dry it was hauled to the waist and pushed through the open gangway into the sea, where, in spite of the vast banquet given them in the carcasses of the whales during the night, there were thousands of gaping candidates for more. ”

“ But if this was lacking, two unexpected dramatic incidents supplied a thrill of excitement and interest to the departure from dock. The first of these occurred just before the last gangway was withdrawn:—a knot of stokers ran along the quay, with their kit slung over their shoulders in bundles, and made for the gangway with the evident intention of joining the ship. But a petty officer guarding the shore end of the gangway firmly refused to allow them on board ”

“ Lured in his recent youth by rich rewards that crime could offer, easy money, and good times, he had first stolen odds and ends to sell to some “fence” of the underworld, gone on from that to spare-hand with a petty gang in an easy robbery or two, proved himself nervy and willing and been put “on the payroll” of the vast syndicate headed by Cowboy. Being bright, good-looking, and skillful with a gun, Gagnon had undoubtedly worked his way from the bottom of the syndicate ladder to his present spot at the long table of a cabin on Porpoise Island. ”

“ The dinghy was quite seaworthy; the damage done to the ship's boats during the bombardment from the "Dresden" had been repaired upon the voyage. The night was clear, the sea perfectly calm, and the shore--as we have said--not far away.
In the meantime, the German commander continued to issue his orders. Crouch still remained upon the bridge.
"Lower a gangway!" cried the German.
"A gangway!" echoed Crouch in open derision. "Do you think that we're a pack of school-girls that can't swarm down a rope? For why should we want a gangway?" ”

“ The Swift was now within a few lengths of the derelict, and passing under her stern, turned to examine her port side.
There, at last, was some evidence of violence, for one of her iron plates had been ripped open, the port side of the bridge had been completely swept away, and there were two jagged holes in her forward bulwark, the jagged ends projecting out, while fragments of a boat hung from her davits.
“She’s been under fire!” said the Captain in astonishment.
“Ay, ay, raked fore and aft by bow chasers,” was the comment of the men.
“Stand by to lower the boat. Let go!” ”

“ Far out to sea a black line, which might have been a sea-serpent if it hadn't been scoter ducks, trailed undulating over the waves, and a single great white gannet plunged from aloft into the deep at intervals with a report like a sunset gun. But they were all innocent, except in the opinion of the fish and shell-fish, and no manner of folk to trouble the pirate skua. Set a thief to catch a thief, however. And, besides, there was blood on the bird and around him, or the taint of it, and blood is the devil and all in the wild. ”

“ In respect to the nervous system, there are no diagnostic characters; there are, however, not as many as two pairs of ganglia to a segment. The brain is well developed, sending a pair of slender nerves to the small eyes. The ganglia of the segment bearing the first pair of legs is fused with the subœsophageal ganglion. Grassi was unable to detect a true sympathetic system, but he suspects the existence of a very small frontal ganglion.
The slender dorsal vessel, provided with ostia and valvules, pulsates along the entire length of the trunk; an aorta passes into the head. ”

“ For a moment the yacht was lost to sight in a cloud of fire and steel, but in the very midst of it, Lancaster ran down the slope of the gangway, wrenched Brand from under his dying horse, and dragged him back into shelter. As the yacht's gangway crashed home the destroyer passed overhead launching torpedoes. ”

“ Clearly, therefore, the cerebral ganglia serve as a ganglionic centre, by which the afferent impulses derived from the feelers and the eyes are transmuted into efferent impulses. Another very curious result follows upon the extirpation of the cerebral ganglia. If an uninjured crayfish is placed upon its back, it makes unceasing and well-directed efforts to turn over; and if everything else fails, it will give a powerful flap with the abdomen, and trust to the chapter of accidents to turn over as it darts back. But the brainless crayfish behaves in a very different way. ”

“ The ganglia of Nucula are easily studied in section. The cerebral mass seems composed of one main mass, partly divided into four subdivisions, the two central most completely fused, and the lateral quite distinct in places. The central portion might represent the cerebral ganglia and the lateral, the pleural if we take that interpretation. The pedal ganglion is made of right and left parts quite completely fused except at the margins. The pedal mass is the smallest of the three chief ganglionic areas. The visceral ganglia are quite widely separated and a little larger than the pedal mass. ”

“ It was a "killer" whale, or grampus, the most redoubtable and implacable fighter of all the kindreds of the sea. Jan saw its wide jaws shear off three mighty tentacles at once, close at the base. The others writhed up hideously and fastened upon him, but under the surging of his resistless muscles their tissues tore apart like snapped cables. Huge masses of the monster's ghastly flesh were bitten off, and thrown aside. Then, gaining a grip that took in the monster's head and the roots of the tentacles, the killer shook his prey as a bulldog might shake a fat sheep. ”

“ A gang of the crew leans near me—a larger gang further down. Heaven knows what they can all be—but they never do anything but stand in gangs and talk and eat and smoke cigarettes. They are mostly young—mostly Palermitan—with a couple of unmistakable Neapolitans, having the peculiar Neapolitan hang-dog good looks, the chiselled cheek, the little black moustache, the large eyes. But they chew with their cheeks bulged out, and laugh with their fine, semi-sarcastic noses. The whole gang looks continually sideways. Nobody ever commands them—there seems to be absolutely no control. ”

“ They either appear to be placed at an angle so dangerous that the only safe way of getting ashore appears to be to sit down and slide. At other times the gang-plank has an unhappy knack of sagging in a precarious manner as you approach the middle, while a couple of sailors hold desperately on to the end to prevent its slipping off the dock. ”