The Fate of the Solan Goose

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XLIII, Issue 12, 22 September 1909, Page 49

The Fate of the Solan Goose

By

H.T.G.

/f”'\ ARREST night I ever seen!" * bawled the skipper. ,1 J “I reckon it’s nothing to the time the Tallo flo’ got piled up on the Buffalo Rock! ‘Ullo! Wot’s that? Look out, Joe! We’re touchin’!’’ Too true! The “Solan Goose” had grounded her keel. She lurched heavily, to starboard, and swayed as if uncertain ,of her resting place. ’ The rigging quivered and the decking ominously creaked. “Luff ’er up!” roared the ‘first mate,’ as the tiny cutter bumped again and gently rolled on to her. bilge. He knew that luffing was impossible, but he felt that he ought to advise something, under the circumstances. “Luff be bio wed! We’re stuck!” replied the skipper. And stuck they were, hard and fast. Luckily the impact was slight. Only one close-reefed sail had been hoisted, to give her steerage way, but the highwater spring tide had swept her far above and beyond the strip of pebbley beach. “Lor’ love a bloomin’ duck!” cried the skipper. “Where are we, ’Arry?” “Dunno boss, but we’ll ’ave to get outer this or we’ll soon be in ’eaven!” “You never wont, you ole casket o’ sin! But don’t go a ‘prayin’ or chuckin’ yerself overside —this ’ere eraft is settlin’ down steady an’ comfy for the night like. There ain’t nothin’ to get scart about. Lower away the stay!” “Gosh! Joe! Wot a narrer ekscape, any ’ow!” heroically chortled Harry who was mate, cook, deck-hand and in fact only member of the crew besides skipper Daly, and who was thinking solely of his own tough skin and its comparative safety. But the skipper was already swinging out on the jibboom with lantern in hand, vainly to peer through the darkness. Presently he crawled back, satisfied that nothing could possibly happen to endanger life, though their whereabouts was a mystery. And no other occupation readily presenting itself, the two went below and divided their attention between commenting upon the mishap (in deep-water English of lusty character) and in consulting a five-gallon keg of tanglefoot rum which had been consigned as “malt vinegar” for the Maoris of Bullion Point. But the “mate” soon became drowsily oblivious to wrecks and rocks alike. “Oh, oil right skip” he murmured. “You ’ad the wheel. I never done it!” And emptying his fourteenth pannikin, he tumbled into bed. “Wot a —a —unsympathetic rooster is the mate o’ this ’ere craft!” hiccoughed Joe in tragic tones. But as a gurgling snore was the only response, the skipper resignedly kicked one of the many cats, doused the candle with the bottom of a mug, and blissfully rolled in a heap upon the cabin floor. Meanwhile, the wind howled and screamed through the rigging, but disturbed not a plank of the “Solan Goose,” as under' her bare pole, she lay serenely on her side, well out of the reach of the hissing spray and of the swirling, receding tide. ■:>**»** The morning broke crisp and clear, with the gale moaning and complaining in the far distance. Engine-driver Dacre’ Adams and his swarthy fireman swallowed a hurried breakfast as day dawned. They left their bush shanty in ill-humoured haste, for well they knew that the storm and flood must have caused them many a weary lift that day. Right there in the heart of the bush great trunks were blown over the line, and the wrecking results of washouts were in unwelcome evidence farther ahead. They stoked their “loco” furnace and quickly hitched up the trucks bearing the previous day’s quota of logs for the distant milL

“The climate of this ’ere country is changin’!” remarked Dacre as he kicked a gnarled Rata fork from the jamb of the engine grank, “And it ain’t gettin’ better, neither!” “Never knowed it blow in Noo Zealan’ like that afore!” said the fireman. “Now the wheels is clear. Turn ’er on, boss!” And away they went, slowly lumbering over the rails. Every obstacle demanded a stoppage, every washout required their combined energy and skill. “Say, Bill,” grumbled the enginedriver, ‘The boss' mighter sent an extra hand or two to clear the bloomin’ track, eh?” “ Oh, aye,” assented his companion. “ Them chaps ” (indicating the bushmen with a jerk of his thumb towards the lofty ka.uris), “ them chaps has got their work straight afore them — we’re the blokes wot’s ’anded the real annoyin’ graft, and don’t you ferget it!” Considering that the two worthies had laboured together with their locomotive and trucks for over twenty years, in all weathers and in all varieties of Maoriland forests, the suggested forgetfulness oftoil was somewhat unnecessary. Wearily the haulers plied their axes and levers, clearing here and jacking there, now bolstering up a sunken rail and now drawing taut the twisted bolts where the gale had crashed a tree against the line; ever gaining ground and gradually drawing their cumbrous freight nearer its destination. The last half-mile to the top of Gentle Annie was fairly clear, as it ran througli a broken-out lane of stumps, and now the valley—“ Desmond’s Dip”—stretched below themWith slow but steady and strenuous puff! puff! the train drew up and rested under full brake pressure right on the brow of the hill. The haulers gazed anxiously ahead, and to their intense disgust saw a big obstruction far below. It was a queer-shaped mass, fair on the rails just past the bridge, and evidently washed ashore on the previous evening’s tide, which, allowing for “ springs ” and for the Nor’-Easter had been abnormally high. “ Four foot over the track!” according to Sweeney, the grog-seller. “It ain’t no log!” was Bill’s first comment. “It is, though! Get out the jacks—outer that it’ll ’ave ter go, wotever it is!” and off they swung at a Chinaman’s trot towards the Dip. Suddenly both men drew up in astonished surprise as the nature of the obstacle became clear. “Bust me if it ain’t a boat!” cried Dacre. “ I told yer so!” “Told be hanged! You only insiniwated as it warn’t no log!” retorted the engine-driver, who was in a fit mood to quarrel with everybody and everything within range of his ill-humour. They approached the forlorn craft, and Bill summoned up all the vocal energy at his command. “ Vessel ahoy!” he roared. “ All drownded, I expec’ ” said Dacre, moderating his rage, and mournfully shaking his head- “ Bote blokes.” But his finer feelings rapidly waned as two shaggy heads thrust themselves into view above the port gunwale. “Blimey!” exclaimed Bill, as the stranded sailors gazed around with mouths agape. “ Blimey! They’ve gone barmy!” And indeed his remark appeared to b; justified. Skipper Daly hid awakened at the bushman’s hail, and he in turn had aroused the mate. As they clambered on deck their astonishment at finding the cutter lying across a railway track at the mouth of a bush creek fairly bereft them of speech and of rational thought. The alcoholic fumes had disturbed their steadiness, and as they stared at the surroundings and at the two enraged bushmen, they strongly re-

sembled marine Rip Van Winkles of a dishevelled and somewhat distracted type. But forceful bush language rapidly restored their senses. “ Where the planets are you mouldy porpoises fired from?” demanded the en-gine-driver. “We’re the eutter Solan Goose, my cherubs!” responded Harry. “Bound from Auckland to Bullion Point, loaded with-: ” “ Shut up!” and the skipper kicked the garrulous mate to one side. “I’m the eapting of this ’ere ship! Wat yer want a-disturbin’ peaceful shipwrecked sailors for; eh, old bark-face?” “I don’t stand no clack from a lump o* sodden rope-yarn like you,” retorted Dacre. “Buck up an’ shift yer dials outer that, an’ lumber that there consumptive windjammer outer this, or I’ll bore a hole through its rotten planks with me injin, an’ use the chips for kindlers!” The skipper gasped, but quickly recovered, and assisted his mate in conjuring up lurid and withering language descriptive of the bushmen, their engine and their tramline, casually suggesting personal insinuations regarding the improbability of the two landsmen being able to produce satisfactory birth certificates. “Any’ow,” concluded the wrathful Daly, when his mate had lost himself in rhetorical tautology. “Any’ow, we’re Sail an’ you’re Steam, an’ the Hact o’ Parliament says as ’ow Steam must give way to canvas on the wide ocean an’ in narrer waters, an’ besides ” “Oh, shut up, or I’ll punch yer nose through to yer baek ’air!” shouted Dacre in reply. “I’ll give yer just two minutes to start shiftin’ this slimy ole skin o’ barnacles baek inter the water. D’ye ’ear ?” “Wot’ll yer do if I don’t?” “Look ’ere, ole Saltpork, my ingine ’as bust up a thousand foot kauri log afore now. an’ onst upon a time she cleared a solid i imu shanty off the face of the earth though she ’ad left the metals. So if yer thinks she can't turn that blistering washtub o’ yours inter a shower o’ failin’ splinters with one swoop down this ’ere gully, my name ain’t Adams, see ?” The mate was about to speak, but Joe promptly silenced him. “You will, eh” said the skipper. “You’ll bust my craft, will yer? Very well, bust ’er! But I reckon ye’ll get a surprise, matey! Have a cut at it, chummy! Say yer prayers ant set yer clatterin’ sausagemachine a-thumpin’ down the ’ill, an’ stand by to sort yer bloomin’ mizzen steam-gauge from out the soot o’ the chimbley’s bowels!” Dacre never said a word. He tapped his companion on the shoulder, and together they strode away to fulfil the fatal threat. “Better sign yer wills,” shouted the fireman over his shoulder. “An’ leave the splinters to me missus for firewood!” “ ’Arry.” said the skipper, after a long and thoughtful pause. “Get the shin's papers and log, me bov. We’ll retire with dignerty to the top side o’ this ’ere gully, an’ stand by to watch th" biggest circus an’ free funeral ve ever set eves on. Skake-a-leg! They’re fakin’ the bulliine! Come on. ’Arrv!” and the two gaily trotted up the slone and settled themselves to watch events. Presently the engine-driver and his mate were seen to sprine from the ensine as she started off. This safetv-seekin" desertion drew forth derisive shouts of laughter from the spectators on the opposite side. “Desecration’s the better nart o’ valve.r. eh. ’Arrv?” said the skinper. But as the oncoming train gathered momentum, the excitement was too intense to admit of the mate’s criticism of quotations. Exactly what happened is l est told in .Toe’s own words, as h" snnn the varn in the bar parlour of the “Auckland Sailors’ Retreat.” “She come down tlmt there de-cline I'Ve a vaselined ’nrricane.” h" said, “Ind I’m timber trucks came roarin' behind. The iniineer. *e stood an’ watched 'er go. I think I see 'im now—’e 'nd a chunk o’ cotton waste in ’is ’and., an’ th" bloke wot shovels the coal stood alongside ’im. They reckoned on that bull iine a-enttin’ through the old Solan an* nulling pn on the jerk o’ th bump an’ on the 'ill on our side. Lor*, ’ow she come, rattlin’ an’ sw.nvin' an’ lookin' fit to go through the wall o’ Chinoy! Down she streaked, an’ ’Arrv an’ me wo ’old our breath. Von could ’ave cut ’Arry's eyes off ’is face with a axe. they was starin' out so. On she come! On she come —nn' then But the narrator saw his chance of increasing the intensity of excitement which was plainly depicted on the countenance of his listeners. He paused, slowly fell for and drew forth a match, very deliber-

ately struck it on his pants and lit hit PipeBut no one spoke to chide his slowness, thus sadly disappointing the old rascal in his dramatic ambitions. “We watched the de-scent o’ that train,” he slowly continued, "with as much anxiousness as the convicted thief awaits the sentence wot sends ’im to labour for no wages and less baccy, an’ a ’ard bed. Wot! Well, ain’t I a-goin’ on? Don’t interrup’ a speaker. That’s one o’ the soonest laws o’ pcrliteness. Well, as I was a-sayin’ afore bein’ interrup’, we watched that there gallopin’ line o’ trucks with the green-painted chunk o’ puffin’ iron tearin’ through space, an’ in about quarter of a shake of a pleeceman’s rattle down she bumps inter the de voted ship. Wot happened? Why, you couldn’t see the hatmosphere, nor the trees, nor the bay, nor the gully for full ten minutes o’ time. The air was that packed with failin’ pieces of bullgine, o’ cat fur, kauri timber, log-truck, eteeterer, that you’d a-thought Boneyparty 'ad riz front the toom and fired all ’is guns to wunst, you would! Fact was, that there cutter was loaded up with boxes o’ dinnymita an’ pereushion caps for the minin’ camps at Bullion Point, an’ when the iron baf-terin’-ram lit—when she come plump inter the suddenest eontaek as ever man seed —up went the whole bloomin’ show! . . . “Aye—gimme that mug. How’d we come out of it? Why, the old hooker was inshored for twice ’er valyer! The little ’ell o’ fireworks she carried was inshored, and besides them two fat cheques, I got a whack o’ damages outer the Timber Comp’ny wot employed them pair o* ship-wreckin’ fools. Lor’, to see then! fellers throw up their arms an ’start jiggin’ round when the disploshun fired that loeermotive inter the thin air o’ ’eaven—Lor,’ you should ’ave seen ’Arry an’ me roll up with laughin’! But this talkin’s dry work. Thanks, I don’t mind if I do!”