PARTED.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXV, Issue 13949, 4 January 1906, Page 2

PARTED.

(By COMMANDER E. H. CURRBY, R.N.)

Author of “ Mickey O’Sullivan, V. 0.,” “ An Unrecorded Engagement,” etc., etc.

An easterly gale had synchronised with high water springtide in the River Thames, and over the Kentish marshes and low-lying land from Shoeburyness seaward the floods were almost touching the record mark. Lone rabbits sat on rough tufts and tussocks of grass surrounded by water, and hares scampered along the tojps of dykes and seawalls, or crouched disconsolate on the stony surfaces from which no “ form ” could be hollowed. Then, as that mighty ebb swept out to sea, releasing some of the wild creatures nearest to the shore, the wind hacked slowly to the northward, and from out of the ice cavern of the Polo stole a light and gentle air. It touched with soft and gentle .insistence on leagues of mud and acres of water left by the receding high tide, and the bents and the tussocks and the seawalls were surrounded by a blue-black, darkling floor, as hard as marble, unyielding as death. The wind, as the sailors say, “ hung in the North,” and'the thermometer went over downward till the ice began to form in great hummocks at the edge of the river; then these broke away and raced on the flood as far as London Bridge, only to come • back when the tide turned. Day by day Father Thames bore upon his broad bosom larger and heavier masses, until barges began to break from their incorings, and the navigation of the river at London Bridge had become well-nigh impossible. On an afternoon in that bitter December a man strode- down Harmer Street, Gravesend, and made his way to the Pilot’s Pier. He passed the turnstile, and walked to the floating stage at the end, and stood gazing out across the river. There was no need of the rough, nautical Flushing coat and peaked cap drawn down over masterful brows to advertise this man as a sailor; his walk, the poise of his head, the loosely hung arms with strong, nervous, half-clenched hands, the keen challenging eye, the clear, brown skin all proclaimed him aloud as one of those men “ who go down to the sea in ships.” Ho had done it all his life, from the moment when, an unknown waif from a midland county workhouse, ho had been sent to the Arethusa training ship in the Thames at the age of twelve. That most excellent of all charitable institutions had given him his first taste of a seaman’s life, and from her he had shipped as a boy in a “ limejuicer ” bound round the Horn. After some years of deep soa work he had fetched up in the Thames once more, and started work in a tug belonging to Gravesend. Ton years hard, steady work had told their tale, and now, at the age of two and thirty, Rufus Ingham, standing on the Pilot’s Pier at Gravesend, has attained to the position of master and part owner of the Ocean Traveller, a screw tug. In those ten years of strenuous self-denial and hard work the man’s character had formed. A hard, capable, self-reliant man, whose reckless daring in his dangerous trade was a by-word among bis acquaintances, but a man apparently self-centred, making few acquaintances and fewer friends, and it was only among the strictly limited number of the latter that any glimpse was ever caught of what lay beneath the cold civility of his ordinary manner. Of women he knew nothing, and apparently cared less, which made his capture by one of them when it did come’only the more easy.

This had been very recent; a month ago Rufus Ingham’s thoughts had been centred upon one object alone, and that was to save money enough to buy out his partner and thus become the solo owner of the “Ocean Traveller.” When that was accomplished he had other projects in view, but he was a man who all his life through had been accustomed to consider one thing at a time, and that with the single eye, hence the success which the friendless and penniless workhouse waif had up till now attained. If Rufus had a friend upon whom he could rely, and for whom he left more affection than any other human being, it was Tom Smart, his mate in the tug. They had been trained together in the Arethusa, and had made their first voyage together, then drifted apart, finally to meet again and serve in the same tug, both struggling to rise in the world. But Smart was not of the tough, unyielding fibre of Ingham, and had it not been for the latter the former would have never risen even to his present modest position, for he was easygoing, lazy, and although no drunkard, still a good deal fonder of what he called “ a convivial evening” than was good either for his health dr his pocket. Bat it happened that Tom was to represent destiny in Rufus Ingham’s affairs. During the past summer' the two men had strolled off into the country at the back? of Gravesend, and Tom, who had some friends who lived in a farm some little distance from Southfleet, vainly endeavoured to make his friend and skipper come in and make their acquaintance. But Ingham was adamant; he didn’t want to be bothered with a pack of women, he said. When it was represented by Tom that “the pack ” only consisted of a mother and daughter, it made no difference; ho knew no -women, and didn’t want to. Here, however, Nature stepped in with a thunderstorm; and as during their conversation they were actually passing the farm, Rufus consented to go go far as to shelter in cao of Farmer Collins’s barns. But the farmer having caught sight of them, came out of his house, and, being hospitality personified, abused the wretched Tom for not bringing his friend into the house, and, taking' no denial, swept them in before Mm out of the rain and made them heartily welcome. Mary Collins cam© thus into the sailor’s life, and peace and ambition fled before her; when the latter -returned, its place, was so secondary as hardly to ba worth mentioning. The green hazel eyes, which looked out of the fairest face in the fairest county of England, were very observant, and behind them was an .intelligence of which the owner did not always get the credit; the woman was so pretty that few women—and no men—over stopped to consider that point. She poured out excellent beer for her father’s guests, and then eat down and composedly began to entertain Rufus, who. never having been afraid of anything animate or inanimate before, found the sensation, of terror acutely confusing. “He is just as shy as he is hand-

some,” was tile young woman’s mental comment, “and I think that he’s clever, but I shan’t find out to-day, he’s much too frightened of me.”

The rain continued heavy and persistent, and the farmer, insisted that the two men must stop to supper. “If you must get wet through, at all events wait till it’s time for you to go to bed when you get , home,” was his eminently sensible argument. That night Mary succeeded in making Rufus talk, and led him. on to speak of the sea and his life thereon, of his present position, his hopes and fears for the future. When he went away she backed up the farmer’s hospitable wishes, that they should soon see him again, and as he left his head was in a'whirl, He got back, and lit his pipe before turning in, and tried to think of other things; but green_ ha'sc! eyes, a mocking smile, brown hair which had caught a glint of the sun, were before Ills mental vision, and refused to be exorcised by any spell whatsoever. The third time that he saw her he asked her to marry him, and she would give him no decided answer. By this time the adventurous young woman was beginning to be somewhat afraid of this masterful master mariner, and- Rufus, recognising this, was miserable. In his stern, self-contained way, the terror which he was apt to inspire among his fellow-men was apt to cause him a certain grim amusement; but this was a very different matter. They stood in the sweet old apple orchard, where the promise of a great crop showed itself in little vividly green bulbs, and Mary leaned against a grey lichened trunk and gazed at the ground. “ I know,” said the man, with an infinite tenderness in his strong, clear, voice, “ that I am a rough, hard fellow, Mary, but can’t you have some pity on me?” The thought involuntarily crossed her mind as to how much pity this man would show to anyone who dared to cross his path. “ I don’t know,” she murmured. “ I don’t know. Oh! I am afraid!” “Afraid of what, sweootest?” , “ Of you, and of the whole thing. I knew nothing of ships and sailors till you came, for Tom doesn’t count, and the sea is cruel and the men ” “ I hope you don’t think the men are cruel too?” he answered, with a grave smile. She smiled up at him, suddenly, bewitchingly. “ Of course they are,” she said. So Rufus could get no answer, and went in torment of his life; and then, in common with so many others, deliberately made a fool of himself. There came a soft-spoken gentleman from London who had a great scheme for entirely revolutionising the riverborne traffic of, the Thames. H© spoke of a mighty syndicate, which on Thames and Tyne, and Clyde and Forth was going to so co-ordinate the traffic and bring it under their hands that all competition was to be squeezed out, and dividends of cent per cent would be paid till the millennium. This man knew his business; he delicately hinted that the financiers engaged, although business men, were not hadhearted, and did not desire to ruin barge-owners, tug-owners, pilots and similar folk, but wished—this, above all other things whatsoever—for their assistance and co-operation, incidentally for their money; so that they might share in the golden rain which was so shortly to descend, Rufus Ingham, the hard, practical man in the things which he understood, fell into tue trap of the thing that ho did not understand. It was all so simple, when explained by the Agent; he mortgaged his half-share of the tug and invested the money; it was all ho had, but he wished to be rich for Mary’s sake; the man would never have done this tiling to merely benefit himself. And now this simple, trusting seaman, standing on the Pilots’ pier at Gravesend on the bitter December morning, knows himself for a ruined man. A letter has reached him signed by directors; and lost in ,a maze of words, “Debenture -holders, preference stock, ordinary shareholders, reconstruction, high hopes of recovery, unfortunate position of the market, etc., etc.,” lost in this maze is the central fact that he is a ruined man. If it were a man to fight, or two men, or ten, he tells himself, he could bear it better, but this web has been spread about him by a thing called a company; against that no man can fight, and—he has to tell Mary. So that afternoon again in the old orchard, where the ground is like iron, and --ie thin drifted enow lies pale and pure against the black-thorn hedge, he tells her—and then a miracle happens —for she who has never in all a long six months given Mm a decisive answer ■ looks up into the troubled face and smiles as he has never seen no" smile before; then she blushes, so that from the fair brow to the delicate throat, all swathed in fur, she is one delicious red. “I know nbw,” she whispers, “oh, Rufus, I know now; if you will have me after all my airs and my nonsense of the past, for 1 love you.” The man’s head drooped to the lovely face held up to his. “ But—l am ruined,” he says, hoarsely. “I know,” comes a loving whisper, “ and that’s just it—oh, you , poor Rufus.” Me ice-choked river was nearly deserted when the Ocean Traveller shipped on the turn of the ebb. No one else was going out on that tide, and a couple of derelict barges, lashed together, and surrounded by hummocks of ics, gave a forlorn aspect to the stream. “ Think we’ll do it?” queried Smart of Rufus Ingham, . who, standing in his little green pulpit on the bridge, grasped the spokes of the wheel. “Do what?” “ Get clear out to sea without breaking more’n two blades out o’ th’ four off the propeller.” ! “ Don’t croak, Tom. Go down and tell Tibbets (the engineer) to stand by lively with the engines. I’m going out on the tide same as a bargee," and I ain’t going to break any blades off'the propeller.” Off Canvey Island they nearly got into an ice jam, but with delicately skilful handling Ingham mimed her out again into the middle of the river, and was then able to steam slowly and cautiously ahead. The sun struck scarlet and orange flashes from the polished steel of the ice in the marshes, and ever the wind stole stealthily from the north. But they were at the ; Kore now, and steaming sturdily out to sea. Tom Smart swung himself on to the bridge one© mors. “ Rufus,” he said, “ if this here frost holds much longer we won’t tow no ship up London River; for why, because it’ll be jolly well frozen over.” “ ‘Well, we can give ’em a pluck up to the Nore, lad, and then tires' can stop there till it thaws; can’t we?” Then the sun dipped, the short day was over, the endless Channel night had begun. But though dark, it was very clear, and with practised ease the Ocean Traveller threaded her way through the estuary, the Mouse Light showing green on her port quarter and half a hundred others winking and blinking on the black surface of “ such a tide as moving seems to sleep.” The tug ranged ceaselessly through the Channel seeking her prey; there was no wind, and the cold was as biting as over, and icicles bung on Tom Smart’s beard and moustache. But if

there was no wind, also there were no ships. “ Blessed if we mightn’t as well be in the middle of the Pacific Hocean,” remarked Tom on the third evening out, throwing all the strength of his body into the misplaced aspirate, in his fury. But that night when Tom came up to relieve Rufus at midnight, a change had taken place. “ Glass has gone down three-tenths since eight o’clock, and it ain’t so cold, and the wind’s hauling to the eastward,” ho reported. Next morning it was blowing a stiff breeze from due east, and the cold was gone—in a manner of speaking. “ We’ll get up London River now if so bo wo ge<.s anything to tow,” said Tom. Just before it fell dark they made out a big steamer flying a signal, and closed her rapidly. “ Want assistance,” read out Tom from the signal book. In half an hour they were tossing and dancing under her lee. She was a modern cargo steamer of 3500 tons, ■with a valuable cargo on board, and had lost her propeller almost as she sighted the Ocean Traveller. The bargain was short and sharp ; night was coming on, it was beginning to blow hard, with every symptom of a dirty night, and the wind showed a tendency to veer to the southward. Rufus Ingham drove a merciless bargain, and then took the disabled vessel in tow. The wind shifted to the south-east, and there was a fresh hand at the bellows* “ We must tow her straight in the eye of the wind, 'Tom,” said Rufus; “the Goodwins are under our lee, and it’s our only chance to hold her. I daren’t risk even a point off to the east’ard.” , Now it was dark, but the. foggy south-easterly quarter brought up no mist, and they could see what they were doing. Those who the North Sea is like and have ridden out a hard south-easterly gale off the South Coast can appreciate the situation; for those who have not—and they are lucky it is somewhat hard to make the position clear. The shallow restless waters of the North Sea do not roll in huge unending seas as do the mighty oceans; but steep, short, ugly and vicious, wall-sided and foam-crested, they make of anything hut a very ship a sport and a plaything. The Ocean Traveller was an unusually powerful vessel of her size and class, in moderate weather would have walked along with her tow at a very reasonable rate of speed; but it was _ otherwise on this particular night. Grim and suent on the reeling bridge, Rufus Ingham leaned over the wheel. He was playinn- for a big stake; if be could successfully tow in this big ship astern his fortune was made—speaking in model aticwi —at all events he would be in a far better position than he was before he had lost his money. If not? Well, so far li6 did not ask himself that Question. Astern the tow wallowed and burrowed, but the real concern in all hearts was for the hawser. On that men s lives, no less than the fortunes of Rufus Ingham, depended. Any ordinary stram it was a great deal more than calculated to bear, but this—the heartbreaking ■jerks nearly seemed to rive the Ocean Traveller asunder; —and then the period in which they waited for the next. Tom Smart came on the bridge. “ She can’t do it; my God, she can’t! he shouted. “I’ve been a-watchm of the South Sand Head Light, and we re going back, back! Rufus looked up from the reeling compass card. “ Get off' the-bndge damn you 1” he said, with .concentrated fury. “ She’.s coming off with us or we all go on the Sands together!”_ . The weaker nature shrank in affright before the wrath of his skipper, and went down the ladder. But the latter now knew that unless something happened to save them he was powerless to avert the catastrophe which would at all events mean,| the loss of the steamer, and probably all hands on board. Evfer the wind blew harder and the cliff-like seas struck with a heavier force. _ Crack! Above the sound of the hooting tempest came the report which told that the hawser had parted. Then came to the surface the finer nature of the seaman whoso hand was on the wheel of the Ocean Traveller. He forgot hie bargain, be forgot himself, his ship, his very love. The steamer was already falling off broadside on to the wind. The Sands, ho knew, could not be more that two miles distant, and j even if he got another hawser aboard, j would it hold? All these things he put j on one side except the last—get another j hawser aboard and save those precious 1 lives. The slippery spokes of the dripping wheel vwhirled to starboard quick as light, and, fetching a long circle inside the doomed, or seemingly doomed, I steamer, he stood up under her lee. Quick to take advantage of any j chance, her skipper had switched on the electric lights from the tops of his cargo derricks, and over the raging torment j

of the gale they glared like twin. eye« in hopeless misery. But they gave Ingham the chance he wanted. He was -taking a fearful risk in approaching the steamer at all, and any ’ moment the vessels might collide, and the smaller go to the bottom; and away to leeward on a low tide the seaa snarled- white over the fearful expanse of the Goodwin Sands. ' It was done, God in Hie mercy per* mitted it, how, the men who did it even could never tell, and the Ocean Traveller once more tautened the fresh hawser and stood seaward. But ;_ Rufua Ingham had now only, in his mind, to settle how soon death might come. Her head was south-east when suddenly the wind shifted to south; in,five minutes it was south-west, and in ten west south-west. They were saved; it was only to run in front of it now, and the shadow of death which had brooded su,ch long hours over the struggling ships took to itself wings, and flew away. I There was still ice in the “London River” when the Ocean Traveller, on the last quarter of the flood, headed up stream, but they could open Tilbury Dock gates now, and in a few hours’ time the steamer was safely berthed inside the docks. “ You drove am amazing hard bargain,” said the captain of the steamer l , to Rufus Ingham, as ho shook him by the hand, “but by the Lord I wish it ’ was double the money now; man and ■ boy I’ve followed the sea for five-and-thirty years, but I never saw pluck' like yours or seamanship either; I shan’t forgot the Goodwins in a sou’easter in a hurry, neither will you, I expect.” Rufus found Mary waiting at the gate, and they turned their steps, as usual, to tho orchard. “ Oh, I am so glad,” she said. “So doubly glad to see you this time, for on Thursday night I woke, there was a sound in my ears like the breaking of a harp string, and a voice from far away said ‘ parted ’ with a sort of sigh; and then a lino from some forgotten piece of poetry kept running in my head, ‘ Something snapped in the darkness.’ What does it all mean, Rufus, or does it mean mere foolishness?” “It means coincidence, dearest, that’s all,” and then ho told his tale, and when he had finished he smiled down at her and said, “ And so, though the hawser parted, it did not mean disaster in the end, for I am now in a position not only to-buy the Ocean Traveller, but another like her if I wish 1 to do so.” “ One more word before we go "in. Rufus; I want to say how ashamed I am that I ever doubted, or ever feared ; now I know, for though you have told tho tale, and left out all about yourself, I have wit enough to discern that you were faithful, even unto death, to save the disabled ship; I am prouder of you than I can say.”He laid his strong hands on the girl’s shoulders, and she faced him squarely, looking up into tho stern, resolute face with a world of love and abandonment in her eyes. “ And now,” she said softly, “I shall never bo afraid again, not of you, I shall only b© ( afraid of myself, that I cannot 1 live up'-to your standard.” , There was but one answer to be made, and the man made it. And one week after the words which end with “ until death us do part ” had been said ? over Rufus Ingham and Mary. Collins. ! '