SOUL OF A SEAMAN

Auckland Star, Volume LXVII, Issue 4, 6 January 1937, Page 17

SOUL OF A SEAMAN

By STANLEY CLARK

THE Southern Indian, the loneliest ocean in the world, stretched, a tumbling mass under a drab sky. The westerly gale had piled up the seas until they were mountains, whose peaks were white with foam from which the spindrift whipped like driven snow. Dio, the albatross, was in his element. With his huge wings motionless, he spudded down the wind at terrific epeed, turned and came up wind without apparent effort. He had been doing that all morning. Yes, and even before the sun had risen somewhere behind the grey pall that covered the sky. He had planed backwards and forwards over the little Bassdale, as if contemptuous at her struggling passage. The Bassdale was making heavy going of it. The huge seas that came up astern of her swung her about like an eggshell. She yawed as a sailing ship will when the man at the wheel is careless. The huge bird had no real thought as to why he loved to fly with the few ships that breasted the wide Indian Ocean. If it had been possible for him to have spoken, he would probably have explained 4hls love as but a natural

desire for food easily got. There were many tasty scraps thrown over the side of even the meanest of ships, and Dio was not long in swooping to them. His bright eyes looked down now on the Bassdale and saw the impotent figures of sailors lurching about the plunging decks, saw them swept off their feet by the sudden rush of the seas. And he knew a slight scorn that had an origin in some unknown part of his past. He saw the cook come out of his tiny galley with a huge pan of food held carefully in his hands. The man took a few steps along the deck, and then a more violent plunge of the ship than usual threw him from his balance. The pan crashed to the deck, and Dio saw the food spill into the water. Dio swooped suddenly. His beautiful white body went low over the bulwarks, his wings outstretched to their full twelve feet. Then they checked him at exactly the right moment. His huge beak opened and closed 011 a piece of meat and he rose with it. And then he saw the sailor poised over him. He swerved suddenly, and a fierce pain went through one of his short legs a* he swept into a mast stay. He dropped limply to the deck. « • • • Arms came about him quickly, and Dio struggled to be free. His beak darted out, but the sailor was holding him too tightly for him to do any damage. Suddenly he lay quiet in the man's arms. '•Look what I've got," the sailor said. " 'Ere. What arc you going to do with that albatross," said another voice, and Dio, by turning his head, could see a short, stout sailor coming towards them. "I'm goin' to take his wings 'ome." "That you're not. Don't you know it's unlucky to kill an albatross?" "That's all my eye." "Not it," said the bo'sun earnestly. "Them birds is sailors that has died.' "Gam!" ' "It's right. What d'vou think they follow ships for. Only to be near their old shipmates. 'Ere, let me have a look at him." ( , Dio was transferred to the lio sun s arms. "Why. he's hurt his leg," said the bo'sun. "Run along and get me a couple bits of thin batten and some rag. I'll soon have him fixed up." Dio lay quietly in the bo'sun's arms. He knew at once that here was a friend. The man held him comfortably, and one great, work-hardened hand lay around the injured leg. Dio almost forgot the pain.

Presently the bo'sun transferred him to tlie first man's arms while he placed the rough splints along the bird's leg and bound them tightly with rag. "Put him down," ordered tlio bo'sun. I The sailor placed Dio to the deck and the bird took a few staggering steps. "He'll do," declared the bnVnu. "-mmhe puts his foot down all right. Now then, my lad." He bent and picked Dio up. The next moment he had launched the bird into the air, Dio wheeled into the wind and planed down until he was fifty yards from the Bassdale's stern. He felt elated. The first fear that had gone through him when he felt the sailor's arms round him was gone. The pain in his leg had almost gone. And he was free again. He came round in a wide sweep and peered down at the Bassdale's afterdeck. The bo'sun still stood there gH/.inff up at him, and it seemed, as he caught Dio's bright eyes and the gratitude in them, he waved his arm. Dio swooped down grandly, right across the deck just abaft the mainmast. He went so slow that if the bo'sun had jumped he could have touched the albatross. Then Dio swept away, right down the ship's length and back again. He saw the bo'sun stoop into the scuppers. His hands came up filled with lumps of meat. With a huge throw lie pitched them well clear of the side and Dio went down to them. Dio saw his new friend every day after that. Tirelessly the albatross followed the Bassdale right across the Great Bight of Australia until land was near. Then Dio whirled away oil the wind back to the loneliness of the Southern Sea. But he picked up the Bassdale on the next trip soon after she had left Capetown. Six months had passed since he last saw the ship. The rag that had bound the splints to his leg had long since rotted away, and the leg gave him no pain. But Doi had not forgotten the Bassdale. nor her friendly bo'sun. He planed down over her now; swept across her. His bright eyes searched for the bo'sun, and soon he saw him coming along the deck. Dio's heart leapt with pleasure. Down he went, even lower. Across the deck he flashed, and then checked himself with his wings. A moment later he landed at the bo'sun's feet. Dio felt a sudden fear as his feet touched the iron deck. Supposing the man had changed I And then he saw the bo'sun's face crinkle 111 a smile. The ■ man stooped and took the albatross in | his arms. i "Well now. If it ain't my old pal. | How's the leg?" He felt the bird's leg ! with gentle fingers. "Sound as a bell, i Now what d'you say to p. bit of meat, eh? A

The sailor stroked the soft feathers at Dio's neck for a time and then walked with the bird to the rail. With a cast of his strong arms he threw him into the air and the albatross sailed out on the wind. The bo'sun turned into the galley and reappeared with some meat. Dio was ready to snatch it from the water the moment it fell. Slowly, the Bassdale pushed across the Indian Ocean, south and eastwards, into the ice zone, where the seas came up solidly astern of her and the water froze to the bulwarks. And Dio followed her all the time, planing a dozen miles to every one the ship made; scornful of the gale and the cold and tlie sea*. The bird was there on the dark night when the storm struck her, when the seas came up over the poop and crashed down with such force that the fittle ship reeled at the blow. Dio wheeled backwards and forwards in the darkness, peering through the scud at the struggling figures on the deck. Somewhere down below his friend was battling with the surging water that was rushing waist high, water that threatened every moment to drag him and the ship down beneath the sea. When the dawn came in in its greynos, to lighten the foaming tops of the sea, Dio looked down, on a ship that was beaten and smashed. The Bassdale had settled in the water, and the seas creamed level with her bulwarks. There was no scrap bucket for the bird this morning. Instead, Dio saw the sailors struggling at the boat-falls, and presently the davits swung out and the boats were lowered. Dio saw them filled with men, his fried the bo'sun among them, and then the boats pulled <>tf a short distance from the ship. Dio circled round them and dipped to the boat in which the bo'sun sat. The sailor waved to him and grinned. "Funny thing about that bird," said the boVun to the others in tlie boat. "Hurt his leg against a stay last trip j and I bound it up for him. Darned if I don't think he's grateful. Sets him- I self down on deck first thing this trip and lets me pick hiin up." i * # * » The boats waited to see the last of the Bassdale, and then, with the wind behind them, and with their reefed, dipping lugsails hoisted, stood away to the south in the direction of Crozet Island. Dio came sweeping along in their wake. He did not leave the boats for a minute during the long passage, and when the men landed on I lie black beach he circlcd round them in wide sweeps. The boVun waved his hand to him again, and Dio came lower, ever lower, to see his friend more clearly. * * * ♦ The officer of the watch on the s.s. Caulfield shivered in the cold air of the dawn, and pulled the collar of his bridge coat more closely about his throat. A gust of spray came over the dodger into his face, and he growled slightly. He was still slightly sleepy. Less than an hour before he had climbed from a warm bunk and come up on to the unprotected bridge to take his watch. He watched now the movements of a ! large albatross who was hovering just I forward of the bridge. The thought I came to him that the bird appeared to : be gauging his distance preparatory to | landing, and sure enough the liugi white body came suddenly over the dodger, the wings checked its speed and the bird landed a few feet away. The officer moved forward and the bird, instead of backing away and pecking with its beak, advanced on unsteady feet towards him. And then the sailor saw the binding round the bird's leg. "Hurt yourself old thing," he said, and came carefully down on one knee. Still the albatross did not move. The sailor took hold gently 011 the leg and a look of astonishment came over his face. "Paper, by jove," he said. The paper was held roughly in place with spun yarn. Rapidly he pulled the yarn apart and spread out the paper.* "Help. Crew of s.s. Bassdale wrecked on Crozet Island," he read. The paper was dated, and had evidently been written only the day before. The officer rose to bis feet and looked for a moment at the bird. It was evidently impatient to be off again, and the sailor launched it into the air. Then he turned and went to the speaking tube to call the C'aulfield's captain. Only then did he think to marvel at the strange way in which the SOS had come. He looked round and into the sky for the albatross. But Dio was already winging his way back to Crozet Island land to his friend, the bo'sun.