The Ghost Ship/Chapter Seven.

Chapter Seven. Disaster on Disaster.

“Accident in the stoke-hold!” repeated the skipper, who of course did not overhear the old boatswain’s aside to me. “Accident in the stoke-hold!” again repeated the skipper; “anybody hurt?”

“Yes, sir,” replied the first mate in the same grave tone of voice. “Mr Stokes and two of the firemen.”

“Seriously?”

“Not all, sir,” said the other, glancing round as if looking for some one specially. “The chief engineer has one of his arms broken and a few scratches, but the firemen are both injured, and one so badly hurt that I fear he won’t get over it, for his ribs have been crushed in and his lower extremities seem paralysed!”

“Good heavens!” exclaimed the skipper. “How did the accident happen?”

“They were searching under the stoke-hold plates to get out some cotton waste that had got entangled about the rosebox of the suctions, which, as we found out, prevented the bilge-pumps from acting, when, all in a moment, just when all the stray dunnage had been cleared out, the ship gave a lurch and the plates buckled up, catching the lot of them, Mr Stokes and all, in a sort of rat trap. Mr Stokes tumbled forwards on his face in the water and was nearly drowned before Stoddart and I could pull him out, the poor old chap was so heavy to lift, and he nearly squashed Blanchard, the stoker, by falling on top of him as we were trying to raise him up, cutting his head open besides, against the fire bars. Poor Jackson, however, the other fireman, was gripped tight between two of the plates and it was all we could do to release him, Stoddart having to use a jack-saw to force the edges of the plates back.”

“My God! horrible, horrible!” ejaculated the skipper, terribly upset and concerned. “Poor fellows; Jackson, too, was the best hand Stokes had below!”

“Aye, sir, and as good a mechanic, too, I’ve heard them say, as any of the engineers,” agreed Mr Fosset, with equal feeling. “But, sir, I’m losing time talking like this! I only came up for assistance for the poor fellows and the others who are wounded. Where’s Garry O’Neil?”

“Why, he was here under the bridge a moment ago,” cried the skipper eagerly. “Hullo, O’Neil? Pass the word up, men, for Mr O’Neil. He’s wanted at once! Sharp, look alive!”

Our second officer, it should be explained, was not only a sailor but a surgeon as well. He had run away to sea as a boy, and, after working his way up before the mast until he had acquired sufficient seamanship to obtain a mate’s certificate, he had, at his mother’s entreaty, she having a holy horror of salt water, abandoned his native element and studied for the medical profession at Trinity College, Dublin. Here, after four years’ practice in walking the hospitals, he graduated with full honours, much to his mother’s delight. The old lady, however, dying some little time after, he, feeling no longer bound by any tie at home, and having indeed sacrificed his own wishes for her sake, incontinently gave up his newly-fledged dignity of “Doctor” Garry O’Neil, returning to his old love and embracing once more a sea-faring life, which he has stuck to ever since. He had sailed with us in the Star of the North now for over a twelvemonth, in the first instance as third officer and for the last two voyages as second mate, the fact of his being a qualified surgeon standing him in good stead and making him even a more important personage on board than his position warranted, cargo steamers not being in the habit of carrying a medical man like passenger ships, and sailorly qualities and surgical skill interchangeable characteristics!

Hitherto we had been fortunate enough to have no necessity for availing ourselves of his professional services, but now they came in handy enough in good sooth.

“Mr O’Neil?” sang out the men on the lower deck, passing on his name in obedience to the skipper’s orders from hand to hand, till the hail reached the after hatchway, down which Spokeshave roared with all the power of his lungs, being anxious on his own account to be heard and so released from his watch so that he could go below. “Mr O’Neil?” he again yelled out.

Spokeshave must have shouted down the Irishman’s throat, for the next instant he poked his head up the hatchway.

“Here I am, bedad!” he exclaimed, shoving past Master “Conky,” to whom he had a strong dislike, though “Garry,” as we all called him, was friendly with every one with whom he was brought in contact, and was, himself, a great favourite with all the hands on board. Now, as he made his way towards the bridge, where some of the men were still singing out his name, he cried out, “Who wants me, sure? Now, don’t ye be all spaking at once; one at a time, me darlints, as we all came into the wurrld!”

“Why, where did you get to, man?” said the skipper, somewhat crossly. “We’ve been hunting all over the ship for you!”

“Sure, I wint down into the stowage to say if the yolklines and chains for the wheel were all clear, and to disconnect the shtame stayrin’ gear,” replied our friend Garry. “But you’ll find it all right now, with the helm amidships, and you can steer her wheriver you like; only you’ll want four hands at least to hauld the spokes steady if she breaks off, as I fear she will, in this say!”

“That’s all right,” cried the skipper, appeased at once, for he evidently thought that Garry had gone back to his cabin and left us in the lurch. “But I’ve bad news, and sorry to say, O’Neil, we want your services as a doctor now. There’s been a bad accident in the stoke-hold and some of the poor fellows are sadly hurt.”

“Indade, now!” ejaculated the other, all attention. “What’s the matter? Any one scalded by the shtame, sure?”

“No, not that,” said Mr Fosset, taking up the tale. “Mr Stokes has had his arm broken and another poor fellow been almost crushed to death. He’s now insensible, or was when I came on deck so you’d better take some stimulant as well as splints with you.”

“Faith, I understand all right and will follow your advice in a brace of shakes,” replied the second mate, as he rushed off towards the saloon. “You’d better go on ahead, Fosset, and say I’m coming!”

With these parting words both he and the first officer disappeared from view, the latter hastening back to the engine-room, while the captain slowly mounted the bridge-ladder again and resumed his post there by the binnacle, after placing four of the best hands at the wheel amidships with old Masters, the boatswain, in charge.

“Ah, what d’ye think o’ that now?” observed the latter to me, as I stood there awaiting my orders from the skipper, or to hear anything he might have to say to me. “I said as how summut was sure to happen. That there ship—the ghost-ship—didn’t come athwart our hawser for nothink, I knowed!”

Just then there was a call up the voicepipe communicating between the wheel-house on the bridge and the engine-room.

The skipper bent his ear to the pipe, listening to what those below had to say, and then came to the top of the ladder.

“Below there!” he sang out. “Is Mr Spokeshave anywhere about?”

“No, sir,” I answered. “He went off duty at eight bells.”

“The devil he did, and me in such a plight, too, with that awful accident below!” cried Captain Applegarth angrily. “I suppose he’s thinking of his belly again, the gourmandising little beast! He isn’t half a sailor or worth a purser’s parings! I’ll make him pay for his skulking presently, by Jingo! However, I can’t waste the time now to send after him, and you’ll do as well, Haldane—better, indeed, I think!”

“All right, sir,” said I, eager for action. “I’m ready to do anything.”

“That’s a willing lad,” cried the skipper. “Now run down into Garry O’Neil’s cabin and get some lint bandages he says he forgot to take with him in his hurry, leaving them on the top of his bunk by the doorway; and tell Weston, the steward, to have a couple of spare bunks ready for the injured men—in one of the state rooms aft will be best.”

“All right, sir,” said I, adding, as he seemed to hesitate, “anything else, sir?”

“Yes, my boy; take down a loose hammock with you, and some lashings, so as to make a sort of net with which to lift and carry poor Jackson. He’s the only chap badly hurt and unable to shift for himself, so O’Neil says. Look sharp, Haldane, there’s no time to lose; the poor fellow’s in a very ticklish state and they want to get him up on deck in order to examine his injuries better than they can below in the stoke-hold!”

“Aye, aye, sir!” I answered, darting aft immediately, to avoid further debation, towards the saloon door under the poop. “I’m off, sir, at once!”

Here I soon got what the Irishman had asked for out of his cabin, and, giving Weston his order about the state room, unslinging the while my own hammock from its hooks and rolling it up, blankets and all, in a roll, I kicked it before me as I made my way down the engine-room hatchway as quickly as I could.

The machinery, I noticed when passing through the flat to the stoke-hold, which was, of course, on a still lower level, was working away pretty easily, the piston in the cylinder moving steadily up and down, and the eccentric, which always appeared to me as a sort of bandy-legged giant, executing its extraordinary double-shuffle in a more graceful fashion than when we were going at full speed, as it performed its allotted task of curvetting the up-and-down motion of the piston into a circular one, thus making the shaft revolve; while Grummet, the third engineer, who was still watching the throttle valve, hand on lever, had a far easier job than previously, when we were running with full power before wind and sea, and rolling and pitching at every angle every minute.

But even in the fleeting glance I had passing by, the screw still went round in a dangerous way when the stern of the vessel lifted, as some big wave passed under her keel, in spite of all Grummet’s precautions in turning off steam and I could not help wondering how long the engines would stand the strain, which was all the more perilous from being intermittent.

On reaching my destination below, however, all thought of the machinery and any possible damage to the ship was instantly banished from my mind by the sight that met my gaze.

In the narrow stoke-hold, lit up by the ruddy glare of the furnace fires, the light from which enabled me to see the brackish bilge water washing about beneath the hole in the flooring and gurgling up through the broken portplates there, I saw that a group of half-naked firemen, and others, were bending over a pile of empty coal sacks heaped up against the further bulkhead, dividing the occupied apartments from the main hold, as far away as possible from the blazing fires, on which one of the stokers on duty pitched occasionally a shovelful of fuel, or smoothed the surface of the glowing embers with a long-toothed rake.

I couldn’t distinguish at first any one in particular, the backs of all being towards me as I came down the slippery steel ladder, carrying the hammock, for I had taken the precaution of hoisting it on my shoulders on leaving the engine-flat above, in order to prevent its getting wet, while the noise of the machinery overhead and the roar of the furnaces, coupled with the washing of the water, prevented my hearing any distant sound.

Presently however, I recognised Garry O’Neil’s voice above the general din.

“Clear off, ye murthorin’ divvles!” he cried, waving his arms above the heads of the crowd of onlookers, as I could now see. “The poor chap wants air, and ye’re stayling the viry br’ith out of his nosshrils! Away wid ye all, ye spalpeens! or by the powers, it’s a-pizening the howl batch of ye I’ll be doin’ the next toime ye comes to me for pill or powdher!”

The men clustering round him spread out, moving nearer to me; and they laughed at his comical threat—which sounded all the more humorous from the Irishman’s racy brogue, which became all the more prominent when Garry was at all excited. God knows, though, their merriment, untimely as it might have sounded to outside ears, betrayed no want of sympathy with their comrade. They laughed, as sailors will do sometimes, holding their lives in their hands, as is the practice of those who have to brave the manifold dangers of the deep below and aloft on shipboard, even when standing on the brink of eternity.

As they moved away, the fierce light from one of the open furnace doors was beating on their bare bodies and making them look, indeed, the very devils to whom the Irishman had jocularly likened them; the latter looked up quickly, saw me, and beckoned me to approach nearer.

“Arrah, come along, man, with those bandages!” he said. “Sure ye moight have made ’em in the toime since I called up to the skipper. Where are they now, me darlint?”

I produced the roll of lint at once from the pocket of my monkey jacket.

“Hullo!” said he as he took and deftly proceeded to unroll the bundle of bandages, “what’s that you’ve got on your shoulders—a rick?”

“A hammock, sir,” I replied. “Cap’en Applegarth told me to bring one down for lifting the poor chap who’s so hurt, and so I took my own, which had blankets already in it, thinking it would be warmer for him, sir.”

“Begorrah, the skipper’s got his head screwed on straight, and you the same, too, Haldane,” said he approvingly, with a sagacious nod as he bent over the pile of sacks in the corner. “Come and see the poor fellow, me bhoy. There doesn’t seem much loife lift in him, sure, hay?”

There certainly did not; to me he looked already dead.

Stretched out on the pile of dirty sacking, in a half-sitting, half-reclining position, lay the recumbent figure, or rather form, of the unfortunate fireman Jackson, his face as ghastly as that of a corpse, while his rigid limbs and the absence of all appearance of respiration tended to confirm the belief that the spark of life had fled.

Stoddart, the second engineer, was kneeling beside the poor fellow, rubbing his hands and holding every now and then to his nose what seemed to me a bottle of ammonia or some very pungent restorative, the powerful fumes of which overcame the foetid atmosphere of the stoke-hold, Mr Stokes, looking almost as pale as the unconscious man, assisting with his unwounded arm, with which he lifted Jackson’s head, his broken one being already set in splints by our doctor-mate.

Blanchard, the other sufferer from the accident, was sitting down on a bench near by, evidently recovering from the shock he had experienced, which really was not so serious as at first anticipated, a rather stiff glass of brandy and water which Garry had given him, having pretty soon brought him to himself.

All our attention, therefore, concentrated on Jackson, who, as yet, made no sign of amendment, in spite of every remedy tried by O’Neil.

“By George!” exclaimed Mr Stokes, a few minutes later when we all began to despair of ever bringing him back to life again. “I’m sure I felt his head move then!”

“Aye, sir,” corroborated Stoddart, pressing his hand gently on Jackson’s chest, to feel his heart, where a slight convulsive movement became perceptible, at first feeble and uncertain enough, as you may suppose, but then more and more sustained and regular, as if the lungs were getting to work again. “Look alive! he’s beginning to breathe again—and—yes—his heart beats, I declare, quite plain!”

“Hurray!” shouted Garry O’Neil, hastily putting to his patient’s lips a medicine glass, into which he dropped something out of a small vial, filling up the glass with water. “I’ve got something here shtrang enough, begorrah, to make a dead man spake!”

The effect of the drug, whatever it was, seemed magical. In an instant the previously motionless figure moved about uneasily, the pulsation of his chest grew more rapid and pronounced, and then, stretching out his clenched hands with a jerk, as if he were suddenly galvanised into life, thereby displaying the magnificent proportions of his torso, he being stripped to the waist, Jackson opened his eyes, drawing a deep breath the while, a breath something between a sob and a sigh!

“Where—where am I?” he said, looking round with a sort of far-away, dreamy stare, but meeting Mr Stokes’ sympathetic gaze, he at once seemed to recover his consciousness. “Ah, I know, sir. I found out what was the matter with the suction before that plate buckled and gripped me. I have cleared the rose box, too, sir, and you can connect the bilge-pumps again as soon as you like, sir.”

Of course all this took him some time to get out.

“All right, my man,” answered the old chief, greatly overcome at the fact of the old sailor, wounded to the death, thinking of his duty in the first moment of his recovery. “Never mind that, man! How do you feel now, my poor fellow—better, I trust?”

“Why, just a little pain here, sir,” said Jackson, pressing his hand to his right side. “I’m thankful, though, my legs escaped, sir. I’ve no pain there.”

Garry O’Neil looked grave and shook his head at this, and looking too as he cast down his eyes over the lower part of the unfortunate man’s body, I saw that the cruel edges of the iron plates had torn away part of his canvas overalls from the thigh to the knee of one leg, peeling off with the covering, the flesh from the bone; while the foot of the other—boot and all—was crushed into a shapeless bloody mass horrible to behold, the sight making one feel sick.

“It’s a bad sign his having no fayling there, Haldane,” whispered the Irishman to me very low, so that Jackson could not hear. “It’s jost what I thought, sure. God may help him, but I can’t. He’ll niver recover, do what we moight for him, niver in this worruld. The poor misfortunate fellow has his spoine injured, and he can’t live forty-eight hours, if as long as that, sure!”

He did not tell him this, however; nor did he lead any of the others to understand, either, that Jackson’s case was hopeless!

On the contrary, when he spoke aloud, as he did immediately afterwards, he seemed in the best of spirits, as if everything was going on as well as possible, though I noticed a tear in his eye and a quiver in his voice that touched me to the heart, making me turn away my head.

“Now you mustn’t talk now, old fellow, for we want you to husband all your strength to get up the hatchway to a foine cabin of yer own on the upper deck, where we’re goin’ to nurse ye, me darlint, till ye’re all roight, sure!” he said cheerfully. “Here, now, just dhrink another drop of the craythur, me bhoy, to kape yer spirits up, and you, Master Haldane, jist hand over that hammock ye’ve got storved away on ye shulder, so that we can fix up Jackson comfortable like for his trip to the upper reggins!”

So saying, the good-hearted Irishman busied himself, with the help of Stoddart, who was equally gentle in handling the poor fellow, getting him ready for removal; and when he had been carefully placed in the hammock and covered with the blanket, the two of them, both being strong and powerful men, they lifted their burden with the utmost tenderness and carried him upward to the main deck, where he was put into a berth in one of the state rooms that the steward had prepared, and every attention paid him.

Mr Fosset and I helped up Blanchard, the other fireman, he, luckily, not requiring to be carried; and we then went down for Mr Stokes, who had refused to leave the stoke-hold until his men had been attended to.

Propping up the stout old chap behind so that he could not slip back down the slippery steel ladder, as he only had the one arm now to hold on by, the three of us reached the level of the engine-room all right, the chief, resting here a moment to give a look round and a word to Grummet, who of course was still in charge, telling him to slow down still further and use all his spare steam for clearing the bilge, as the sluice valves had been opened to prevent the fires being flooded out, and the pumps were in good working order again.

Grummet promised to attend carefully to these directions, and a host of others I cannot now recollect, poor Mr Stokes being as fussy and fidgetty as he was fat, and in the habit of unintentionally worrying his subordinates a good deal in this way, and the three of us again started on our way upwards, the old chief leading, as before, and Mr Fosset and I bringing up the rear very slowly, so as to prevent accident, when all at once there was a fearful crash that echoed through my brain, followed by a violent concussion of the air which nearly threw us all down the engine-room ladder, though Mr Fosset and I were both hanging on to it like grim death and supporting the whole weight of Mr Stokes between us.

At the same instant, too, the crank shaft stopped revolving, all motion of the machinery ceased, and the hatchway, with all the space around us, was filled by a dense cloud of hot steam!