Harry Escombe | Page 9

I found
that my hair was wet with something warm that was soaking it and
trickling down into my eyes and ears. Then I heard the voice of the `old
man' yelling for the mate and the carpenter; and as I fought myself
clear of the raffle I became aware of many voices frantically
demanding to know what had happened, husbands calling for their
wives, mothers screaming for their children, the sound of axes being
desperately used to clear away the wreck, a sudden awful wail from
somewhere ahead, and a rushing and hissing of water as the craft that
we had struck foundered under our forefoot, and the skipper's voice
again, cracked and hoarse, ordering the boats to be cleared away."
O'Toole paused for a moment and gasped as if for breath; his soup lay
neglected before him, his elbows were on the table, and his two hands
locked together in a grip so tense that the knuckles shone white in the
light that came streaming in through the scuttles in the ship's side, his
eyes were glassy and staring into vacancy with an intensity of gaze
which plainly showed that the whole dreadful scene was again
unfolding itself before his mental vision, and the perspiration was
streaming down his forehead and cheeks. Then the table steward came
up, and, removing his soup, asked him whether he would take cold beef,
ham-and-tongue, or roast chicken. The sound of the man's voice
seemed to bring the dazed chief officer to himself again; he sighed
heavily, and as though relieved to find himself where he was,
considered for a moment, and, deciding in favour of cold beef, resumed
his narrative.
"The next thing that I can remember, gentlemen," he continued, "was
that I was on the poop with the skipper, second and third mates, the
carpenter, and a few others, lighting for our lives as we strove to keep
back the frantic passengers and prevent them from interfering with the
hands who were cutting the gripes and working furiously to sling the
boats outboard. We carried four boats at the davits, two on each
quarter, and those were all that were available, for the others were
buried under the raffle and wreckage of the fallen masts, and it would
have taken hours to clear them, with the probability that, when got at,
they would have been found smashed to smithereens, while a blind man

could have told by the feel of the ship that she was settling fast, and
might sink under us at any moment. At last one of the boats was cleared
and ready for lowering, and as many of the women and children as she
would carry were bundled into her, the third mate, two able seamen,
and myself being sent along with them by the skipper to take care of
them. I would willingly have stayed behind, for there were other women
and children--to say nothing of men passengers--to be saved, but I
knew that a certain number of us Jacks must of necessity go in each
boat to handle and navigate her, and there was no time to waste in
arguing the matter; so in I tumbled, just as I was, and the next moment
we were rising and falling in the water alongside, the tackle blocks
were cleverly unhooked, and we out oars and shoved off, pulling to a
safe distance and then lying on our oars to wait for the rest.
"I shall never, to my dying day, forget the look of that ship as we pulled
away from her. The Joan had been as handsome a craft as ever left the
stocks when we hauled out of dock at London some three weeks earlier;
but now--her bows were crumpled in until she was as flat for'ard as the
end of a sea-chest; her decks were lumbered high with the wreckage of
her masts and spars; the standing and running rigging was hanging
down over her sides in bights; and she had settled so low in the water
that her channels were already buried; while her poop was crowded
with madly struggling figures, from which arose a confused babel of
sound--shouting, screaming, and cursing--than which I have never
heard anything more awful in all my life.
"When we had pulled off about fifty fathoms the third mate, who was in
charge of the boat, ordered us to lie upon our oars; and presently we
saw that the second quarter-boat was being lowered. She reached the
water all right, and then we heard the voice of the second mate yelling
to the hands on deck to let run the after tackle. The next moment, as the
sinking ship rolled heavily to starboard, we saw the stern of the
lowered boat lifted high out of the water,