A MAN OF IRON

Auckland Star, Volume LXVIII, Issue 299, 17 December 1937, Page 17

A MAN OF IRON

By. . . . FRANCIS H. SIB9ON.

Short Story

MR. WILLIAM PURDY, the big Australian mate of the Pietonmoor, looked, just what he always said he was—hard aa nails. One got the idea that if he should ever lose his temper with a dock-wall, the dock-wall would be the one to suffer. He stood with one elbow on the bar, one foot firmly planted on the bar-rail, his shore-going suit of blue serge emphasising rather . than hiding the muscular body inside it, swapping notes with Wood of the same company's Chilternrange, an old friend and shipmate whom he had met quite by accident after some years ot' parted trails, at the shore-end of the South Arm on his way up-town from Cape Town Docks. "What's the sea's coming to these days," he was saying, in a voice like a muted foghorn, "I'm d dif I know. Take a piece of stale bread and soak it in stale beer and squeeze it about till it's like a lump of putty, then let it grow fungus on it, and you've got our Old Man to a T. He's old and soft and doddering; he's scared stiff he'll dirty his ticket before he retires, eo he edges along the coast like as if he thought it had got the plague—and he coddles the hands. Last voyage he condemned a whole bar'l of beef because they said it wasn't good enough. One o' these days he'll be asking 'em aft to the saloon for their meals. Sentimental old fool! The sort of sentimental old fool who'd expect me to risk the lives of a whole boat's crew, to say nothing of my own. trying to pick him up if he fell overboard in heavy weather. Whereas, if horse sense still ran the sea, we'd leave well alone!" The mate of the Chilternrange winked at the barman. "And if a big, strong he-man fell overboard ?*• he asked. "Like you, f'r instance 1" But there was no change coming from Mr. Purdy. "If I was mwg enough to go into the ditch then I hope I'd take what was coming to me without pulling others into the ditch after me. If a man can't look after himself he oughtn't to be at sea at all, and the sooner he pets drowned the better for the rest. The survival of the fittest is what I say. It mayn't do ashore in schools for young ladies, but it's the only rule at sea if you ever want to get anywhere." Mr. Wood very wisely agreed—with another wink at the barman, intended to convoy that Mr. Purdy's ideas were merely theoretical. He covered the wink with an instruction to refill the glasses. Mr. Purdy continued to hold forth, calling logic, example, and ancedote to his aid, and inevitably drifting into an impassioned eulogy of the fine old, hard old days of sail. Mr. Purdv had done his apprenticeship© in one of the last of the British windjammers, and saw no reason why either he or anyone else should forget the fact. Having enjoyed a thoroughly happy hour together, the two old shipmates parted at last. Mr. Purdy went on uptown to get his hair cut, then returned to surpervise the loading of some coastwise cargo for Port Elizabeth and East

London. The Pietonmoor was bound up the South African coast as far as Durban. She sailed the next day. into the usual local sou'-easter. Fetching a wide circuit round Cape Point, the Old Man steadied her on her coastal course— with a good safe ofling for Agulhas, an

area which Kipling and the Sailing Directions alike immortalise in lanonic. words of warning. The sou'-easter died away, the glass giving promise of the usual change to the south-west, which was not long in coming up behind her. Scornfully regarding the course as marked Qut for her on the chart, Mr. Purdy wondered, sotto-vocc, whether the Old Man was proposing to fetch Port Elizabeth via Kerguelen and the Antarctic. As it happened, the Pictonnv>or never fetched Port Elizabeth at all.' How it happened no one was ever able to explain. Nobody would deliberately put a ship ashore on that terrible bit of coast between Capes St. Francis and Recife — especially with a howling sou'-wester behind her to shove her on all the harder and smash her up when ehe got there. At the Inquiry they were inclined to think that, having come up-coast with a needlessly wide oiling, Captain Meacham had not made enough allowance for the deflecting effect of the current as he headed in across for Algoa Bay. However all that may be the plain fact remains that at about twenty-five minutes past four on a morning of roaring black dark, with a blinding blanket of driving rain to make that dark still blacker, the Pictonmoor struck head-on upon one of the uglieat of the many reefs that fang this brutal shore-line, and tore half her bottom out in ten awful seconds. Mr. Purdy, relieved from the bridge at four a.m. by the second mate, had just turned in again for a couple of hours before taking the fo'c'sle-head for entering harbour. Just drifting off to sleep, he could still feel the slow, lifting ecend of her motion as each following sea took hold of her and thrust her forward. Of a sudden she lifted too much, with that swift sweep that a surf-bather feels on a wave that is just about to break, then leapt dizzily forward, checked with a ghastly crunch, ploughed on disastrously for an uncountable age of thunderously clanging nightmare, then brought up with a jar that rattled his very brain. Before that brain had even had time to wake fully to reason, he was out of bunk and on deck, racing for the bridge in his pyjamas. Overside the sea raged vaguely grey-white, breaking furiously everywhere; ahead, through a mist of rain, and fore-blown spray, a span of solid dark arose a third of the way to zenith. "By God!'' grunted Mr. Purdy. She's bang on the beach!" Unfortunately she was not. Between her split-open bows and that beach ot rock-ribbed shingle full seventy yards of lunatic sea a reared up and churned all ways among the up-jutting rocks, boiling like a dreadful pot, appallingly plain in the eharp blaze of the secondmate's first rocket. Mr. Purdy, mounting the bridgeladder, caught sight of Captain Meacham, queerly pathetic with hie wet grey hair, in the light from the wireless door as he entered. A monent later the aerial began to spart. No need to read it off. Mr. Purdv and knew, too, that it was \jselees. The Pictonmoor was done for, and if they weren't off her pretty soon they also would be done for. She couldn't last long, the way these seas T»ere pounding her, with her bottom sawed right open on the reef. Already he could feel her shake, broken-backed, to the liquid, impacts aft. and already the afterpart I-of her,, still floating over deeper prater,

was sagging down into it. A creaking and cracking about him, underfoot, everywhere, felt rather than heard amid the surrounding up-roar, told him that she was slowly snapping in two. At any moment she might simply fall apart be rolled over and under, overwhelmed, stamped down —and her people washed off, to be . . . digested ... by that horror of waters between them and the land.

No boat could live in it a minute. She would lie twisted about like a chip, splintered on the rocks, filled, smashed to barrel-staves. And:

"If there's anything afloat that could come in here from seaward to take us off her, I'd like to see it," said Mr. I'urdy to his lialf-dazed subordinate. "And, anyhow, by the time anything can get here from Port Elizabeth there'll l>e no Pietonmoor to speak of, and we'll be in the ditch —unless we hump ourselves and get ashore right now."

"The captain told me to tell you, wlien you came, to take soundings," began the second mate, "for'ard, amidships and "

"What the hell? No time for that! Get out the rocket-line and the breechesbuoy, d'vou hear? See any lights ashore? Any answer to that rocket of yours? . . . Thought not. There's nothing ashore hereabouts, 'cording to the chart. Not even a road. No one to take our rocket-line, see? No good shooting lines ashore with no one to tend 'em!"

Captain Meacham came back from the wireless-room, aged ten years in ten minutes, but calm with the deadened calm of shock.

"Only one thing for it, sir," said Mr. Purdy.

"I'll have to swim ashore and stand by to take our rocket-line."

The captain looked from Mr. Purdy to the land, and then, irresolute, at the churning death between. The first hint of the dawn-grey was coming into the world, and in the faintly lessened dark that seventy yards looked like the Styx in maniac spate.

"You, Mr. Purdy?" stammered Captain Meacham. "You'll swim—that?"

"Well,'" demanded the Atistralian, in the tone of one who has been, grossly doubted but has little time to argue,

"don't I know all there is to know about surf? Wasn't I trained for a lifesaver on Manly Beach? Who the hell else is there in th# shipload of paralytics? Gimme a can of oil and I'll slick myself down. I don't want a line. It"d only hold me back; and if I can't make it I'll only pass out a bit sooner than the rest of you, so tliere'd be no sense in hauling me back again. You can shoot me the line when I get ashore. It'll carry easy on this wind."

ne was peeling off his pyjamas. Someono brought the oiL Quickly he smeared it over his skin.

"That'll help a bit. May be in the water some time," he said, scanning the job before him. "I'm not rushing it. There, and there"— pointed—"l'll have to try and hang back for a good sea to carry me over. Ready? All right. I'm off!"

Without further farewell he ran lightly down the | bridge-ladder, his magnificent muscles rippling under the oil, swung himself over the bulwarks, waited a split second while a breaking sea went snarling part, and dropped into its spuming aftermath. In that rock-infested sea he had known better than to dive.

He reappeared ten yards inshore turned and slid under the next sea, shot up into sight behind it, then swam powerfully shorewards and was lost in the grey. A huge sea hit the Pictonmoor's wavering stern, engulfed it in an iipshooting cloud of white. The ship shuddered, groaned, cried out in metallic agony as the eteel bones broke —then there was but half a ship teetering on the reef. The other half, the stern half, swung round slowly, heeled over, leaned down into the next trough, and was buried under the next onslaught of piled water. The sea came on and struck what was left of the Pictonmoor full upon her open wound, raging in among her engines, bureting up over the after end of her midships superstructure, the spray of it hissing like a cataract about her men, clustered there under the shivering bridge. Overhead, the steam from the dangerous boilers tore up into the lightening sky from the escape-pipe, adding its uproar to the turbulent din.

Turning their flinching eye 9 again to that seventy yards which boiled between them and safety, they looked for Purdy, but could not see him. Was he already dead ? Had even his powerful limbe failed to save him from the grip of the seas, and those murderous rocks that they roared against and over with such savagely elemental force?

Well, if Turdy wag gone they would not be long in following him, as he had said himself. Their broken ship was poor protection against these hurtling combers and their thousands of tons of bodily moving water. At almost every blow she was forced a little farther inshore, over the grinding reef, planing off a little more of her crumpled underplating, crushing down lower and lower, ■jolting nearer and nearer to the top-pling-point of the reef's inehore edge. And at the same time the tide was rising. Already the water swirled and sucked along the main-decks; already the superstructure was an embattled islet in the sea. It would not be long before the sea began to lick them off. Still no sign of Turdy. Then, through a slight lulling of the weather, his voice came fighting to them —a hoarse foghorn roar of unintelligible but obviously angry words. And they saw him, a little way up the beach, stamping and gesticulating in a way which suggested that he was getting very cold and desired the rocket-line to be fired at once, please. With a hissing rush it left the tube, sna.ked away ehorewards and landed fifteen yards from where he waited. He threw himself on it and began to haul in. In less than five minutes he had the buoy-line itself anchored at his end, and the men of the Pictonmoor were hauling theirs taut, hooking on the snatchblock of the breeches-buoy it«elf. An injured stoker was the first to be sent ashore in it. The rest of them followed in quick succession, and none too soon. Continually the wire-rope slackened as the ehip was driver* closer in: continually the slack had to be taken up. At last there was no one left aboard but the captain.

"What the hell's he doing?" demanded Purdy as Meacham vanished in6ide the chartroom. "Ship's papers? Why didn't he get 'em before, blast him? He'll be too late in a minute! Get a move on, you t'arancd old fool!"

Purdy was bleeding from one thigh, where a rock had scored him, and blue with cold despite the overcoat they had brought ashore for him; but his eyes looked hot enough to be afire.

It was full day now. Everyone saw the next sea sweep in and steepen, rearing up like a snake about to strike —everyone except Meacham. He was just coming out of the chartroom and it masked his sight. Every throat ashore yelled a warning. Meacham waved a hand, came down the ladder and began to approach the breeches-buoy. The sea struck. The Pictonmoor's doddering superstructure stood out for an instant against its white background of upflung water, then was buried under its overpouring curtain. "Hell!" said Purdy, tersely, through his teeth. The curtain poured away, blew clear. The superstructure streamed like a halftide rock. Crumpled motionless against the upper-deck-rail, where the sea had flung and left him, lay Captain Meacham. "Haul in that bouy!" roared Purdy. Hardly knowing why, the hands clawed at the endless hauling-rope, brought the buoy jerking swiftly in along the sagging wire. Purdy jumped into it. "Haul out—sharp!" Ko one said anything else. In urgent haste they swung him out over the sea. Yet it seemed ages before his dwindling figure reached the ship. They saw him get out of the buoy, saw him jump to the captain's side and lift him, saw that the bag of ship's papers was still clenched in the captain's hand. Purdy half carried, half dragged, him to the buoy, lifted him in, lashed him safe— | and made fast the bag to the buoy beside him. Then he waved his hand.

Roundly they heaved on the rope, gently they lifted Meacham's unconscious body to the solid earth. They could find nothing broken. Concussion probably. Meanwhile the buoy went spinning back seaward for the mate.

But even as Purdy put out a hand for it, another great sea struck.

Dimly they saw what was left of the Pietonmoor reel under the blow, reel and jump bodily inshore —then droop quite gently over. She had been pushed off the reef, was sinking into the deeper water between it and the shore.

The buoy-line slackened, sagged down into the sea.

For am moment they stared, witless; then the second mate let loose a bellow that shook the air.

"He's all right yet—he's swimming for it again!"

For a space he watched spellbound then began to shout, as if Purdy could hear him.

"Now! . . . Steady! ... In you come —inyou come—easy! ... Xow again! While the sea lifts you! Come on all— stand by to get him when he comes! He'll surf in if he can now! Here he comes! Ko, he's missed it —oh, God!—'s all right—he twisted clear. I thought that—rock had got him! Now—oh, now! Come on in witli you!"

A big breaker had roared in over the surf, had poured over the half -submerged wreck, had settled again to a lolloping roller and steepened once more as it raced for the beach. They saw Purdy rise in its glittering green wall, saw him strike out to keep in its van, desperately, but with only one arm. Was he hurt? Could he make it?"

Yes! The sea had him, was shooting him in like an arrow. Deftly he grazed a fang of black outcrop, and came ploughing down into the shingle-soiled shallows, was seized and held against the backwash, and dragged triumphantlv ashore.

Then they saw why he had used but the one arm. The other was broken— an ugly compound fracture. He fainted when the second mate touched it.

The Chilternrange had originally been expected to clear homeward from Cape Town, but was ordered up-coast to take the cargo that the Pietonmoor should have loaded. Thus it was that Mr. Wood in due course found himself sitting at his friend's bedside in the Port Elizabeth Provincial Hospital. The staff-nurse had said he was asleep, but that Mr. Wood could stand by till he woke if he cared to. So Mr. Wood was standing bv. In his opinion it was well worth while.

The moment came. Mr. Purdy stirred, yawned, opened his eyes, blinked them, focused them on Mr. Wood, and stared.

"You do talk, don't you!" gaid Mr, Wood, very meaningly.

Mr. Purdy stared a little longer; then, as the fact of Mr. Wood's presence plus the import of Mr. Wood's remark went home, he frowned.

"What d'you mean?" demanded Mr. Purdy, in what -was meant for righteous wrath—but his eye was sheepish. "I had to go and get the ship's papers, hadn't I?"