THE SHIP’S BELL

New Zealand Tablet, 18 December 1913, Page 9

THE SHIP’S BELL

Within two days of her destination, the steamship Northgate, of the Jellocoe Line Captain Pritchard— Liverpool to Halifax, ran into difficult weather. The wind went dead east, blowing hard and attended by the thick fog and sleet which invariably accompany easterly gales in that chilly latitude. The ship crept along at half-speed, feeling her troubled way with consummate care and with frequently repeated mournful echoes from her siren. But the fog hung before her like a curtain, stifling the warning screams and muffling every sound aboard. The captain and the second officer were on the bridge, chilly in their oilskins, and silent. There was nothing more to be said about the weather, and there was no cheerful influence to encourage conversation. Suddenly, however, an invisible sailor below struck an invisible ship’s bell, whose notes broke the- silence sullenly and briefly. A moment later Captain Pritchard turned towards his subordinate. Tired of the weather before, he was now weary of the silence, and the voice of the bell had suggested a theme.

‘ I never hear a bell,’ he said abruptly, ‘ without remembering something that happened when I was a child. Were you always normal, Gibbs?’ ‘Normal,, sir?’ asked Gibbs, an unimaginative young man from Newcastle. ‘ Yes, —ordinary, and not extraordinary.’ The captain did not express himself happily. Apparently becoming conscious of this, he passed on. ‘For my own part,’ he said, ‘I believe I was not. I must have been curiously fanciful. I remember some of these fancies even now. That affair of the bell, however, was not exactly a fancy; it might rather be called a curious experience. It did not trouble my parents much, so they must have explained it in some satisfactory way. I was too young then to be given the scientific explanation, and I have never troubled to get one since. Probably any doctor could give me one at five minutes’ notice.'

What was all this leading to ? The. mate stood and listened very respectfully. It was sufficient for him that the captain was in a particularly good humor. Things might so easily have been worse. The captain yawned as he proceeded. 4: ‘To come to the point,’ he said. Two or three times during my childhood, before I was five years old, I suffered severe frights through hearing a bell ring when there was no bell near me, and when no one else heard it. It was either a hallucination or it was a disease ; something due, I mean, to some defect in my auditory organs. But I certainly heard a bell ring on several occasions when no bell rang, and was extremely frightened in consequence.’ ‘ Enough to send any youngster into fits,’ ventured the mate, not a little impressed. 4 ‘Quito so. Quite so. But 1 was, no doubt, a fairly healthy child in other ways. Now, I distinctly remember the last occasion, and the way in which I sobbed in my amazement and alarm. It made such an impression upon my mind that I can recall every detail.’

He moved to the end of the bridge and came back, staring intently but hopelessly into the white shroud on every side'. The Northgate’s siren gave a long, melancholy wail, and then dead silence fell. ‘We lived in a country cottage, semi-detached,’ said the captain carefully, ‘ and an old lady who lived next door was a great friend of ours. On this particular day my parents were sitting at a little round table in the cottage of this next-door neighbor, an old woman of eighty. She, too, was sitting at the table, knitting, and I was sitting idly on my father’s knee listening to their talk. I was a rather quiet child, and loved the company of my elders. I cannot remember the talk, but I recall the scene very distinctly. I was not facing the table myself, but sitting sideways to it. I can even remember a point like that. Suddenly, it seemed to me, a very awkward and somewhat startling thing happened. The old lady, who was knitting, had her wools upon the little table. As she moved her arm she happened to bring it into contact with a small hand-bell standing near her, and swept it clean off the table. It fell with a sharp double-clang upon the stone floor, and there lay still.

% That, of course, was to me simply an accident. I had no doubt that the thing had occurred, that such an accident had happened. Under that impression, I turned half-round, waiting to see the old lady stoop from her rocking-chair, pick up the bell, and replace it upon the table. I was simply interested, and on the alert to handle a new toy. Most children, as you may know, enjoy playing with a bell. To my astonishment, however, none of the others present paid the slightest attention to the accident. The conversation went on without a break, and neither the old lady nor my parents so much as glanced at the floor. I was surprised. ‘After that came the sensation. I wanted to see

for myself what had become of the bell, and in my movement to do so attracted my father's attention. He, asked me what I wanted, and I told him I was looking for the bell which the old lady had knocked down from the table. They were so astonished that I had to repeat my explanation, and that more than lonce. Then I became alarmed, for I saw them look /meaningly at one another; and my alarm developed into terror as I realised the truth. They had heard no bell fall, because no bell had fallen. There had been no such article on the table there was no such article in the house!' • The captain paused, and the second officer pursed his lips in an expressive whistle. He felt that the shrouding fog gave a particularly uncanny cast to a Story which was sufficiently mysterious without such a ghostly accessory. He also felt that henceforth the ship's bell, so ordinary a signal under the hands of the thoughtless apprentice, might-have a new significance for him. Captain Pritchard had finished his story and was satisfied with its effects. 'Well,' he concluded, as he

took another turn, ‘ you can imagine how such an

incident would influence a rather shy, . quiet child of four or five. It simply, terrified me, and it was a long time before I could remember the' assurance which my parents used, backed by the grand-motherly consolation of our old neighbor. There was nothing wrong, they said, nothing to be afraid of. There was really no bell, and the noise I had heard was caused by nothing more than a little trouble in .my ears. Many people had had the same experience,' and I would soon grow out of it.’ There was a pause. 1 I’ve heard, sir, of people suffering from fancies of that kind,’ said the .mate reflectively. But I never heard a case given with so much detail, and so altogether remarkable. Were you ever troubled again in the same way ? . ‘Never that I know of,’ said the "captain. ‘Apparently I grew out of it, as my parents expected. The experience, however, made . a deep and lasting impression, and I often recall it when I hear a ship’s bell struck. Another result is a certain consideration which I feel for the sometimes unreasonable fancies of children.’

The captain was a family man, a master-mariner' of the best modern type, with a skill in chess that almost equalled his love for the game, and with several t good shelves in his cabin piled with the best writers in colonial and other editions. So the Northgate was a good and comfortable ship, and one of the best of a popular line. - ‘ And that’s a very good result, sir,’ agreed the second mate. ‘But have you ever told your story to a medical man?’.

‘No,’ answered Captain Pritchard; ‘I haven’t. Somehow, the opportunity hasn’t turned up, or if it has, I have been reluctant to relate what, after all, may be a very simple and easily explained affair. Indeed, I hardly know why I’ve told the yarn to you to-day.' As far as I can recollect, I’ve never told it to any one else.’

The mate felt not a little flattered, but Captain Pritchard at once tried to coyer the compliment with reservations. ‘lt is the weather, perhaps,’ he said. l lt is bad enough to account for anything. Six times I’ve sailed this course before, but never have I seen it so —not even in January. One needs to feel sure that there’s two hundred miles of blue water straight ahead still.’

‘ Yes, sir. But I think it won’t last much longer. I notice the wind’s going round a bit south,’

' Let's hope so. And now, Mr. Gibbs, I leave you on the bridge for a few minutes. I'm going to get a cup of coffee.' •_ So, after another unsatisfactory look round, the captain departed, and Mr. Gibbs roused himself to the responsibilities of his position. The Northgate was doing rather less than half her speed, and screaming at every step but the fact remained that she was plunging along her course with little more than her own length clear before her. Her signals could be heard for perhaps a quarter of a mile, but still there was the element of risk and uncertainty. He stared straight ahead into the dense white wall, and in two minutes had succeeded in forgetting the captain's curious narrative. Almost immediately afterwards, considerably to his surprise, his chief once more mounted .to the bridge and joined him. ' Almost as thick as ever,' he said grimly. ''Eh?' ' Yes, sir,' 1 answered Gibbs. ' One might just as well stare straight into a marble mantlepiece.' Captain Pritchard made no reply. He glanced at the compass, noted what speed the ship was making,, and walked to the end of the bridge and back. Apparently he was uneasy, and he had certainly lost that pleasant communicativeness of the last half-hour, . ' He's a bit rawed,' thought the mate. 'ln ten minutes, unless it clears a little he'll put us on quarterspeed. And I shan't be the one to blame him.' With that he descended the ladder. '-• Moreover, one man on the bridge was as good as two, and only half as useless. -.-/;»' .-■ ■ .

When he reached the deck he found about half-a-dozen men, one of them being the third engineer, then off duty. Afterwards he remembered precisely what men these were. * The second officer did not reach Collinson just then, for the incident of the voyage took place while he was yet three yards off. Suddenly and urgently tinkled out the engine-room bell, clear above the churning of the , engines. At the same instant there was a hoarse shout from the bridge. The bell had rung out ‘ Shut off steam but in an instant tinkled again, ‘ Full steam astern.’ After a long and fearful pause there was a sudden silence as the machinery halted in its motion; but the Northgate surged helplessly on through the white seas. Another instant and she seemed to be struggling with herself as her huge bulk answered to the engines.

A second afterwards the mate gave a cry. Out of the white wall before him loomed, an almost formless mass, a vast black body pricked out in fog and snow. Another breathing-space, and they were, on it, the Northgate’s bows striking with a shock that threw the men off their feet. The bow-plates crashed in, and there was a sickening noise of rending woodwork. The great ship stood still and shivered as if she had received a fatal blow; but ( a moment more her bows were clear, and the hulking death in her course was drifting away into the mist from which it had emerged. When the first man from below came tumbling on deck there was nothing in sight to explain the disaster which had taken place. 3 For a few seconds there were signs of panic, but it did not spread. The engines were still, and the Northgate rode shivering in the grey and silent sea. Then the captain’s orders rang out from the bridge in straight, plain terms that gave no suggestion of danger, and immediately everything was done in the best order. All hands were on deck in three minutes as a matter of course, and it took no more than five to prove that the ship had suffered little damage. Several plates had been started, but there was no injury that threatened her safety. Just in time the captain had given his saving signal. Otherwise ( . ‘ Otherwise,’ said Mr. Gibbs, under his breath, it would have been a hole in our bows big enough to build a house in, and about an hour to take to the boats. Captain Pritchard, I’ll drink your health. You’re the finest man in the North Atlantic to-day.’ ‘A derelict, I guess,’ said the third engineer, blankly, A Canadian timber-ship,’ answered Mr, Gibbs, waterlogged. Been drifting in these seas since the days -of the Flying Dutchman, waiting for you and me. And we came.’

•-D ’.Then he turned to stare out into the blank wall of fog which had swallowed up the enemy. But it beats me,’ he said slowly— ‘it beats me how the old ‘mart could have seen her !’

He put the question aside for more pressing matters

during the next half hour, but it was to come up again in a most bewildering form. That was when things had been, made good as far as possible, and the first officer reported the Northgate * ready to resume her voyage. It was then that Captain Pritchard laid bare the secret of his action in ' a somewhat astonishing declaration. 0

Confound it, Mr. Bruce, ’he cried angrily, ‘ do you think I’m going to steam away and leave that poor fellow to his fate? What do you take me for?’ The first officer’s bewilderment was extreme. ( , Were going to stand by,’ declared the captain, till the weather clears a bit. That won’t be more than an hour or two; but if it was a week it would be all the same. That man saved my ship, and I’m going to pick him off before I stir a yard.’ t The first officer was a long-headed, cold-humored Scot, who never lost his temper or his reason. While all the others stared at one another, convinced that Captain Pritchard’s brain had been turned by the recent shock, he began to make inquiries. ‘ I beg your pardon, sir,’ he said calmly; ‘what man do you mean.?’

' Why, the man on the derelict,' answered Captain Pritchard. ' The one who gave us warning of its whereabouts by striking the bell.' . , ' Again the clustered members of the crew glanced at each other for light. The first officer simply looked thoughtful, and preserved, a discreet silence; but the captain, who knew these signs, waxed impatient. 'You were below, of course,' he said; 'but every one on deck can tell you all about it. If it hadn't been for that bell, sir, you'd be in command of the lifeboat by this time, with the Northgate settling by the head. That's all.' But that was not all. A dead silence followed the speech, instead of the chorus of assurance and declaration which might have been expected from the watch on deck. It lasted so long that the captain was struck by its significance. J ' What in thunder is the matter with you all?' he rasped angrily. ; 'Where's the second officer?—Mr. Gibbs,. you were on deck; you heard the bell?' 'Very sorry, sir,' said the second officer, 'I don't remember it. I didn't hear a sound. I only saw the hulk crowding over our bows.' There was a pause. Every one began now to realise that there was a sensation afoot. Captain Pritchard turned to the third engineer. ' You heard it, Mr. Knight?' he asked. 'I heard your bell ring in the engine room, sir,' answered .Knight. That was the first and only bell forme.' •

The captain stared from face to face. Not one of the other few men of the watch came to his aid, and he realised what this meant, ‘ Very well,’ he said grimly ‘but it was a good thing fof all of us that I heard it, anyway. And we’ll just stand by, Mr. Bruce!’

P? ... Imagine, then, the Northgate, with her voyage suspended, drifting before the wind at the rate the vanished derelict had been seen to drift, waiting for the leisurely clearing of the weather. Imagine the captain, solitary and grim, on the bridge with his useless telescope, the first and second officers conversing in low tones now and again, and the men attending to their appointed tasks with sly glances at one another that spoke-louder than words. And under these strained conditions glances were certainly safer. The point of it was that they were all dead against their shipmaster. Those who had seen the derelict were unanimous in their decision that there could have been no one on . board; and Collinson, an experienced seaman, who had had the best view, was prepared to wager his last half ounce of tobacco that she had been a sea-washed wreck for at least a year. As for the bell The man who thought most and said least was the second officer. v He had something to think of, and his paucity of speech was due as much to his good feeling as to his good sense. He realised that the captain's story was really something confidential, and that he must not impart it to anyone else. In this he was undoubtedly right, and . his conduct gained its acknowledgment. That was late in the afternoon, when the sensation

was over. Meantime the new south wind gradually thinned the curtain of fog until the telescope could resume its ordinary functions with a good face. Then expectation became keen, every glass was brought into use, and every acre of the tumultuous northern sea was eagerly scanned. And more than a mile to leeward a black, spot appeared and disappeared, looking like anything but a ship in the utterness of its ruin. But the engine-room bell tinkled again, and the Northgate steamed triumphantly on her mission of rescue. During the next half hour a curious silence held almost every one. They were in the grip of a mystery, but the circumstances were not of a character to encourage free comment or audible speculation. It lay between the captain on the bridge and the derelict on the water; and while no one expected tile captain to win, it would not be politic to say so aloud. Indeed the silence became even more general when they drew nearer, and were able to examine at leisure the helpless' hulk which. had so nearly proved their ruin. Once she had been a ship of some two thousand tons, but it was generally agreed that Collinson's estimate had been over-modest. Of course it was impossible to say when her ruin had come, but she had certainly been the sport and butt of the storms for a long cycle of months. There was no life in her ghastly hull, but she lay like a log, with the seas'breaking over her and their waters streaming through the gaps in her shattered bulwarks. Long ago the last fragment of her deckhouse had been swept away, but the stumps of three lost masts and a bowsprit still reared themselves in tragic mockery out of the ruck of disaster. y: There was no sign of a name on her paintless timbers, no hint of life from stem to stern. For many minutes the glasses searched her in vain, and then, at a signal from the bridge, three shrill screams from the Northgate echoed over the water. After that a strained silence fell once more. In response to another command from the captain, the Northgate moved round to leeward of the wreck, whose hulk was listed over to starboard. Then at two Jhundred yards they got a square view of her sloping fdeck, and there was no further question. No human being could by any possibility have lived there. As she lay, her whole deck was naked to the seas, and in scores of gales the thundering billows of the wild North Atlantic had hurled themselves upon it and climbed in triumph over it. Every fragment of furnishing had long been swept away, and she lay so deep that water could be seen welling from her gaping hatches as she rolled. There was no shelter on the -hull for anything larger than a bird, no- resting place for any creature without wings wherewith to fly. The men glanced at one another cautiously. Only one or two could see the tragic side of the situation, while its absurdity was apparent to all.

Suddenly the captain spoke. ' Mr. Gibbs, come up here.' .•.:;.' ,■„ ~ :• . r -*. , : Yes, sir,' said the second officer; and when he reached the bridge he found Captain Pritchard ready to speak. - Mr. Gibbs,' he said curtly, 'I was convinced that this morning I heard a signal from that hulk yonder — a bell. As a matter of fact 5 it is to that warning that we owe our escape. You follow me?' Certainly, sir.' - • --V-. '""-."■ Well, Mr. Gibbs, I have eyes, and can see what is before me. But you know as much, as I do, and I want your confirmation. After looking at that wreck, do you agree with my conclusion that the thing is impossible?' - - ■ For an instant they stood eye to eye. Then the second officer touched his cap. 'Nothing but a bird could live there, sir,' he said emphatically. ' It's out of the question.' Thank you,' answered the captain in the same curt manner. ' That will do.'

The mate turned and retired. The bell rang again in the engine-room, and instantly the propeller began to lash the grey water ;,£-But no man smiled as the Northgate resumed her voyage. That dismal spectre of loss and ruin, drifting upon a still and barren sea had crept upon their spirits, and they turned their backs upon it with a great relief. —Catholic Columbian.