The Wings of the Morning | Page 7

the wind swung round a point to the westward.
Then Captain Ross smiled wearily. His face brightened. He opened his
oilskin coat, glanced at the compass, and nodded approval.
"That's right," he shouted to the quartermaster at the steam-wheel.
"Keep her steady there, south 15 west."
"South 15 west it is, sir," yelled the sailor, impassively watching the
moving disk, for the wind alteration necessitated a little less help from
the rudder to keep the ship's head true to her course.
Captain Ross ate some sandwiches and washed them down with cold
tea. He was more hungry than he imagined, having spent eleven hours
without food. The tea was insipid. He called through a speaking-tube

for a further supply of sandwiches and some coffee.
Then he turned to consult a chart. He was joined by the chief officer.
Both men examined the chart in silence.
Captain Ross finally took a pencil. He stabbed its point on the paper in
the neighborhood of 14° N. and 112° E.
"We are about there, I think."
The chief agreed. "That was the locality I had in my mind." He bent
closer over the sheet.
"Nothing in the way tonight, sir," he added.
"Nothing whatever. It is a bit of good luck to meet such weather here.
We can keep as far south as we like until daybreak, and by that
time--How did it look when you came in?"
"A trifle better, I think."
"I have sent for some refreshments. Let us have another dekko[Footnote:
Hindustani for "look"--word much used by sailors in the East.] before
we tackle them."
The two officers passed out into the hurricane. Instantly the wind
endeavored to tear the charthouse from off the deck. They looked aloft
and ahead. The officer on duty saw them and nodded silent
comprehension. It was useless to attempt to speak. The weather was
perceptibly clearer.
Then all three peered ahead again. They stood, pressing against the
wind, seeking to penetrate the murkiness in front. Suddenly they were
galvanized into strenuous activity.
A wild howl came from the lookout forward. The eyes of the three men
glared at a huge dismasted Chinese junk, wallowing helplessly in the
trough of the sea, dead under the bows.

The captain sprang to the charthouse and signaled in fierce pantomime
that the wheel should be put hard over.
The officer in charge of the bridge pressed the telegraph lever to "stop"
and "full speed astern," whilst with his disengaged hand he pulled hard
at the siren cord, and a raucous warning sent stewards flying through
the ship to close collision bulkhead doors. The "chief" darted to the port
rail, for the Sirdar's instant response to the helm seemed to clear her
nose from the junk as if by magic.
It all happened so quickly that whilst the hoarse signal was still
vibrating through the ship, the junk swept past her quarter. The chief
officer, joined now by the commander, looked down into the wretched
craft. They could see her crew lashed in a bunch around the capstan on
her elevated poop. She was laden with timber. Although water-logged,
she could not sink if she held together.
A great wave sucked her away from the steamer and then hurled her
back with irresistible force. The Sirdar was just completing her turning
movement, and she heeled over, yielding to the mighty power of the
gale. For an appreciable instant her engines stopped. The mass of water
that swayed the junk like a cork lifted the great ship high by the stern.
The propeller began to revolve in air--for the third officer had corrected
his signal to "full speed ahead" again--and the cumbrous Chinese vessel
struck the Sirdar a terrible blow in the counter, smashing off the screw
close to the thrust-block and wrenching the rudder from its bearings.
There was an awful race by the engines before the engineers could shut
off steam. The junk vanished into the wilderness of noise and tumbling
seas beyond, and the fine steamer of a few seconds ago, replete with
magnificent energy, struggled like a wounded leviathan in the grasp of
a vengeful foe.
She swung round, as if in wrath, to pursue the puny assailant which had
dealt her this mortal stroke. No longer breasting the storm with
stubborn persistency, she now drifted aimlessly before wind and wave.
She was merely a larger plaything, tossed about by Titantic gambols.
The junk was burst asunder by the collision. Her planks and cargo

littered the waves, were even tossed in derision on to the decks of the
Sirdar. Of what avail was strong timber or bolted iron against the
spleen of the unchained and formless monster who loudly proclaimed
his triumph? The great steamship drifted on through chaos. The
typhoon had broken the lance.
But brave men, skilfully