A HEART OF OAK: A Three-Stranded Story

Southern Cross, Volume 3, Issue 51, 21 March 1896, Page 13

A HEART OF OAK: A Three-Stranded Story

By W. GLABK BUSSELL.

CHAP, XIX

Me Moore continues titb stort. No news of Marie reached us after ■we received a letter by a brig called the Queen of the Night, which had spoken the Lady Emma in the North Atlantic. She had sent us a sort of diary or journal: it was meant for her father and me: she wrote in spirits which, the entries showed, were gaining in biightness and there was no doubt that her health had greatly improved. Some of her descriptions were very fine ; she seemed to have thrown herself into the very life of the voyage and wrote of the sails, rigging, discipline and manoeuvres of the vessel with the easy familiarity of an old sailor. We gathered that she was perfectly happy with Captain and Mrs Burke, and of Mr Owen she spoke with gratitude for his attention and sympathy. I was told, however, by one or two seagoing acquaintances not to wonder if we did not hear again from Marie until the ship arrived at her first port, Valparaiso. A vessel might be ninety days upon the ocean and yet not ‘ speak ’ another. A friend spoke of an Indiaman that in the whole voyage from Bombay to the Thames —not allowing, of course, for the ships seen on touching Capetown — had sighted nothing but the topmost canvas of a vessel whose hull was sunk out of sight below the horizon. I was living in rooms out of Bond street. One morning in 1860—it was October 2nd, and Marie had been ■absent from England six months, during which, after the arrival of the Liverpool brig, we had received no news whatever either of her or the Lady Emma —I say on October 2nd, whilst at breakfast, I picked up a morning newspaper and began to turn it about. After reading for some time my eye lighted upon a paragraph headed : ‘ Loss of the ship Lady Emma.’ I trembled and felt sick ; I wanted courage to read the paragraph. Though the paper was shuddering in my hands and my eyes were upon the news, yet before reading I caught myself reasoning ; it is another Lady Emma —it cannot be Marie’s ship—there may be ten or twenty Lady Emmas afloat —and then I read. The paragraph —I have not preserved it—was to this effect :

‘ The barque Planter being 1 to the eastward of Cape Horn, fell in with a ship’s long boat full of men. The captain took the unfortunate people on board, but some were lifeless, haying been frozen to death during the night. Their story was, they were the boatswain (Wall) and survivors of the crew of the ship Lady Emma, Burke, master, that sailed from the Thames bound to Valparaiso on April 2nd. She had been driven to the southward and eastward by heavy weather, and when in about fifty-nine degrees south latitude, she “was totally dismasted by a sudden hurricane. After fruitless efforts to erect a jurymast the crew abandoned her in the longboat, With them went the ship’s doctor (Owen). The master refused to quit the ship and remained aboard with his wife and a young lady passenger. Very shortly after the longboat had been met with, one of the crew of the Planter fell overboard. A boat was lowered in charge of the chief mate, Mr Ralph Selby, but before she could reach the men a sea capsized her, and the mate and the three men who were in her were drowned. Within a week of picking up the survivors of the Lady Emma’s crew the Planter transferred them to a vessel bound to Monte Video, where tjiey were forwarded by H. B. M. Consul by steamer to this country,

arriving yesterday at the West India Docks; Mr Owen died before the arrival of the vessel at Monte Video and was hurried at sea. It is supposed that the Lady Emma foundered prior to the rescue of her crew, as Captain Parry of the Planter, which is a barque of four hundred'and sixty tons, cruised at great risk amongst the ice in the neighbourhood of the spot where the hull was supposed to be lying without seeing anything of her,’ 1 sat as one paralyzed, I read the account through again, scarcely even then believing that the ship was the same that my beloved had sailed in. Thrusting the newspaper into my pocket I put on my hat, ran into the street, and jumping into a cab bade the man drive me to Messrs Butcher and Hobbs, at such and such a number in the Minories. It was about a quarter to ten o’clock. Batcher and Hobbs were the owners of the Lady Emma, of her and a little fleet of smaller vessels. I had been introduced by Captain Burke to Mr Hobbs, and now it came to me as I was driven fast with my brain in a whirl, half mad with consternation, grief, the hundred emotions which must needs throng upon so abrupt a disclosure of dreadful news as this I had just read—it came to me, I say, that Mr Hobbs in my presence had very earnestly advised Captain Burke to insure some goods he was taking out as a speculation of his own, and I recollected the Captain replying with an arch laughing air full of strong confidence that insurance would only render him indifferent: he had no fear as to the safety of the ship ; if he insured and she was lost it would be said he sank or stranded her.

On my arrival in the Minories I entered an old fashioned grimy office in which sat a tall, stoutly built seaman with immense whiskers both hands on his knees ; he stared idly as though waiting. I went to a desk, and asked for Mr Butcher or Mr Hobbs. The clerk may have recollected me: he instantly rose, entered an inner office, and returning begged me to step in. Mr Hobbs was alone: a large fat man, yellow-haired and bearded, with staring, watery eyes. As I entered he stood up with an air of deep dejection and extending his hand, bowed over it looking down, exclaiming:

‘ I know the business that has brought you here, sir. It is terrible —it is shocking. But— ‘ he then stod erect, and shrugged his shoulders with a roll of his eyes upwards. ‘ The report in the paper is true, then ?’ said I. ‘ I grieve to say it is,’ he replied. I so trembled with grief I could scarcely speak to the man. ‘ Are we to entertain no hope whatever ?’ I said, leaning upon the table for support; he placed a chair ; I sank into it and proceeded —‘ S'urely we need not certainly conclude the dismasted ship sunk after the longboat left her merely because ’ —and here forgetting the names I brought out the newspaper to refer to ‘ the Planter failed to find her after a few hours’ search in, perhaps, thick weather, and amongst the icebergs which may have been numerous P’ ‘ Oh, of course,’ he exclaimed, we must not abandon hope. As you justly put it, the Planter’s search counts for little, considering how brief it was, and the state of the weather. I’ll not pretend I have much hope myself, but the sea provides many chances. Again and again you hear of rates rising until no further risk is taken ; then the ship is posted, her end made sure of, and one fine morning she’s signalled off some Channel blowing leasurely along with the loss of her foretopmast and her bottom beach-like with weeds. I don’t dispair sir, yet I must honestly own my hope is not strong.’ He paused, and then Said, ‘ I believe one of the crew of the Lady Emma’s in the front office.’ He walked to the door and looked out. Would you like to see him ? He was the boatswain of the ship ; his name is Wall.’ I eagerl} begged him to bring him in. He called, and the big sailor I had noticed entered. I immediately

recollected that Marie, in the fragment of journal she had sent us, had praised him for his civility and his qualities as a seaman. He stood before us, cap in hand, his back slightly arched by years of stooping and hauling and curling of his body over yards and booms; his weather-coloured face was hard as leather, and rugged and knotted with muscle; one of those seafaring faces impenetrable to the chisel of ocean experience, which 50 tragedies of the deep would not more mark than the human anguish in shipwreck alter the countenence of the the rock which stares through the salt smoke down upon the scene.

‘ This gentleman,’ said Mr Hobbs, ‘is Mr Archibald Moore. The young lady passenger aboard the Lady Emma was ’ he dropped his head and was silent. I gazed at the seaman with consuming interest: he had been among the last, he might have been the last, who had seen, who had spoken to Marie, ‘ You’ll not tell me,’ said I in a broken voice, ‘ there’s no hope for the three you left behind you ?’ ‘No, sir, I’ll not tell you that,’ answered the man in deep tones which trembled upon the ear with the power of their volume. ‘ I’ve said all along that if the ice only lets the hull keep afloat, there was not hen to prevent her being fallen in with. She wasn’t so far south,* continued he looking at Mr Hobbs, ‘as to be out of the way of half a dozen chances a week if the weather opened out the sea and gave a view of her as she lay, with but twelve foot of foremast standing.’ ‘ Why were they left behind ?’ I cried. ‘ Why were they left to wash about in a dismasted bulk amongst ice to perish horribly after days of suffering perhaps ?’ and I beat the table with my fist. ‘ The capt’n refused to quit,’ said the seaman, speaking calmly in his deep voice and reviewing me with an air of respectful pity. ‘My mates’ll tell you I entreated of him and the ladies to enter the boat, likewise did Mr Owen the doctor. We wasn’t listened to. The captain was all for waiting for something to come along and take the hull in tow. He was for jury rigging her—on a twelvefoot stump of foremast,’ said he, slowly regarding Mr Hobs. ‘ The consarn blew over the bows. What in that way was going to stand down there ?’ ‘ You should have used force,’ I said. ‘ With the capt’n ?’ he exclaimed, with a slow astonished shake of his head.’ * Had you got the captain into the boat the ladies-would have followed.’ ‘ Neither ’ud have been alive next morning. The young one would have froze to death in a lew hours. You should have heard the strongest amongst us groaning with the cold when wo lost sight of the craft we were making for, and when the night drawed down, and we wore for the hull, alf hands of us mad for the shelter of her and the warmth of our blankets, and the hot drinks to be got. ‘ I tell ye, sir,’ he added calmly, and respectfully, ‘ that the captain knew more about it than we did, and was right to keep the ladies aboard, for if they was to die then, better comfortably in a warm cabin than in an open boat, with spray sheeting over them at every plunge. ‘ What was the situation of the hull when the crew abandoned her ?’ I asked.

Mr Hobbs pulled open a drawer and read aloud a copy of an entry in the log-book of the Planter in whicb the meeting with the longboat was minuted. The situation as there stated was Lat: 58' 45’s. Longitude 45- 10 W. This copy of the logbook entry had been handed by Captain Parry of the Planter to the master of the ship to whom th crew had been tranf erred.

A yellow glazed map of the world hung in the office over the mantelpiece. My eye went to it and I made a step, saying to the boatswain Wall: ‘ Show me the place. What land lies nearest to it P What is the usual

track of ships passing Cape Horn ?’ He hung back evidently ignorant of maps and of latitude and longitude. Mr Hobbs, picking up a ruler, approached the mantelpiece and peering close at the dingy map, presently put the end of the ruler upon a part of it and said: ‘This as nearly, will be the place where the crew abandoned the hull.’ ‘ Is that land there ?’ Mr Hobbs slanted his head to read and exclaimed : ‘ Ay: in this little group we have —my sight is not what it was: ah! the South Orkneys. These to the left— ‘ with straining sight and some difficulty he spelt out ‘ South Shetlands.’ ‘ What sort of Islands are they ?’ I asked. * About the most desolate, froze up, oninhabited rocks on that side of the world,’ answered Wall. ‘ There’s nothen to be thought of along o’ them.’ ‘ Why ?’ I asked. ‘ Because going ashore they would be like hidden ice. In the swell that’s always a-running the hull ’ud go to pieces with the first blow like a loosened faggot. Their one chance,’ he added in a voice of deep conviction ‘ lies in their being fallen in with and taken off. That may have happened. If so it’ll be a question ot waiting.’ 4 lf so,’ cried Mr Hobbs, with a raised manner of cheerfulness that was scarcely sincere, 1 thought, ‘ Captain Burke will bear in mind the suspense and anxiety you and the young lady’s fathei are susufferinjg, and exert his experience as an old seaman to promptly communicate; so that, let us trust, if there be good news in store, we’ll get it quickly. ‘ Suppose the hull should have been thrown upon an iceberg F’ I exclaimed, addressing Wall, 4 must she inevitably go to pieces ?’ ‘ That ’ud depend upon how she took the ice,’ he answered. 4 If she stranded and lay dry—such thing have happened—could the three live in her ?’ 4 Yes sights more comfortably than if she was, afloat.’ 4 For how long ?’ 4 She was freighted,’ said Mr Hobbs 4 with an abundance of the necessaries of life.’ 4 How long could a vessel remain upon the ice in a habitable state F’ 4 Years,’ answered Wall, 4 if she’s let alone. Give her a snug berth clear ot the wash of the sea and tumbling blocks, and what’s to hurt her ?’ Mr Hobbs was staring at me earnestly. 4 1 could wish to persuade you,’ he exclaimed with a melancholy inclination of his head, 4 to discard the motion of the hull finding a berth on an iceberg. Our hope must take a practical form : let us then believe that the wreck has been encountered by one of the many whalers and other vessels which frequent those seas, and Captain Burke and his companion are at this present moment safe.’ I turned to Wall and plied him with questions. What was the condition of the hull P What had been the state of Miss Otway’s health P Did he believe bv recalling her looks when he last saw her that she' had the strength to outlive the horrors, trials, suspense, suffering of one week of the dismasted hull, rolling about amidst the ice in dangerous desolate seas P the wildest in the world and in their midwinter F Was Captain Burke single-handed, alone aboard the wreck as a man, capable of doing anything to help them into safety F If not, why had he stuck to the ship F What madman’s nightmare of imagination could have induced him to remain with two women aboard a vessel he could do nothing with P I almost raved my questions at the men, so wild grew my heart with grief whilst I listened to his plain answers full of an old practical seaman’s good sense, though several times he repeated that the captain was right to keep his wife and Miss O tway aboard, as they never could have survived the first night in the longboat.

He increased my distress by banting 1 somewhat doubtfully that Captain Burke had fallen a little weak in his

-voyage: he spoke of an apparition that had been seen to walk on the ship’s forecastle ; it had been clothed in the likeness of the captain, and ever after he had ceased to be quite the same man. ‘ Can you imagine ?’ I cried, rounding upon Mrs Hobbs, ‘ that the loss of the ship is owing to Captain Burke having gone mad ?’ ‘You wouldn’t say so ?’ he answered, looking at Wall.: ‘No sir,’ answered the seaman; * there was no madness in that job of dismasting if it wasn’t in the weather. ‘ But,’ I exclaimed picking up the ruler Mr Hobbs had used and laying the end of it upon the map, ‘ what was the captain’s motive in carrying this vessel so far south ? See where the Horn is. What injGod’a name was he doing so high ? ‘He was blown there,’ answered

the man. ‘ I understand,’ said Mr Hobbs, ‘ that a succession of hard northerly gales settled the vessel to the southward and eastward, considerably out ot the usual course.’ ‘The Planter was also blowed south,’ said Wall, I continued to question with impassioned anxiety, eagerness and grief till I found I was likely to become an intruder in that office, on which, asking the boatswain Wall for his address and ascertaining that he did not mean to look about him for another berth at present,! shook hands with Mr Hobbs and -walked to my place of business in the City—a private bank near Gracechurch Street. Sir Martimer Otway was at this time at Paris on a visit to some friends. I had heard from him two days before, and understood that he would return on the fourth or fifth. His health was not good ; of late he had become very anxious about his daughter: he thought it was time after six months that he should receive news of her or that the Lady Emma should be reported. This being so, I resolved not to write, but to wait until his return, when I would tell him of the wreck of the ship, if indeed the account of it did not reach him through other hands or the newspapers in Paris. Eor my own part I was so shocked, so stunned, there was something so terrible to my imagination in the character of this wreck, in every circumstance of it, having regard to the loneliness of the three, the wild and stormy breadth of waters where the hull had been left plunging helpless by her crew, that I could not hold up my head ; I could not speak. I sat in a sort of stupor. My father reasoned with me ; he pointed out that the hull was afloat, a stout seaworthy vessel when the crew left her, that being dismasted she was Jess likely to beat against the ice than were she moving through the water under sail, that a vessel had been seen and pursued by the crew, that where one was there must be others, and so on, and so on. 1 heard him and that was all.

I cannot tell how great was my love for Marie. I felt that 1 had acted as a wretch, betrayed the darling of my heart to her destruction in sanctioning her father’s scheme of sending her alone —and she must be alone if she was without me—on a long voyage, in a comparatively small sailing ship. The fancy of her in that rolling, dismasted hull a dreadful oppression to my imagination, and worked in me like madness itself. I had seen the ship, and so the figure of her as she tumbled dismasted amidst the heavy seas far south of Cape Horn was easy to paint. To think of my Marie, that delicate, fragile, timid girl, imprisoned in such a hulk, enduring hours perhaps days of anguish in poignant suspense and heart-breaking expectation of death, all alone as she was, countless leagues away from me, from her father, with no other companion than her old nurse, who, let her devotion be what it might, must surely fail her at such a time! '

My mind felt crazed. I could not lift my head nor speak. (To be continued.)