Chapter IX
Only a few seconds after Jordan's last cry, Jim Robbins was snatched from heavy sleep to wakeful terror by the squeaking groan of rending timbers; he sat dazed with horror as the huge top-mast and top-gallant mast crashed in ruin around him. The shrouds behind him suddenly went slack and followed the mast in its fall; hundreds of fathoms of cordage fell round him and over him, entangling his body and limbs, and he narrowly escaped death when a great wooden block came whizzing out of the dark to strike a glancing blow on his shoulder. He had now enough presence of mind to keep still, and after the long seconds of dread a new silence descended on the ruined ship. Jim had time to look around and below him to see what had caused this new disaster. As soon as he saw the break in the hull he knew the cause of the dismasting : a sailing-ship is like a forest of tall trees roped together for mutual support. Fell one, and many more will follow. The sudden break in the ship between the main and foremast had set up cruel strains in the beautiful, balanced web of the rigging. Something had to go, and that something had been the foremast, which now ended in a splintered stump about six feet above Jim's "island". Jim looked up at the yellow brightness of the bare wood and thought: "Why me ? Why should I be chosen to survive ? If the mast had gone at the deck where should I be now?" And then the thought struck him — "Jordan! He must have been on deck somewhere!"
He wriggled himself free of the octopus coils of the fallen rigging and peered down into the darkness aft; he could just make out the forepart of the ship below him, still standing upright, and the broken end of the after part, which was now lying slumped steeply over to port. He shouted time and time again into the darkness, but there was no reply except the soft whine of the cold wind and the lap of the cold sea. Jim could see that the waves were now over the main-deck and would soon cover the foc's'le, but still the thought went round his brain: "He saved me three times over — and he didn't even like me. The lower shrouds are all right. I can go down. He might be down there injured or trapped. And he saved me." The real Jim Robbins was coming to life — not a particularly daring young man, but as brave as most.
It felt strange to be walking about again; the deck seemed like a twenty-acre field — yet terribly exposed and dangerous. And the foretop seemed, from there, a warm, safe haven of refuge. He remembered a small lonely boy playing exploring games in the twilight in a dark shrubbery and looking at the warmly-lit steamy windows of the house.
Yet he did what he could, calling and searching, going even into the yawning, dripping darkness of the crew's mess, until he felt the first waves break over his feet, and knew that he was alone, and would soon be dead himself if he did not climb. As he climbed, he found remembered words from his schooldays echoing in his head — "Alone, alone, all, all alone, Alone on a wide, wide sea . . ."
He had time, when he had reached his "island", to realize how miserable indeed his new situation was. He realized, for instance, how much he missed the rough, careless warmth of his companion. For all his harshness and contempt, he had been generous, he had been strong, and he had known what to do. Jim had never known a father, and thus did not grasp what it was that made him weep for the vanished Jordan.
And things around him had changed for the worse, too. No longer was there any shelter, for the shrouds, to which the friendly tarpaulin had been tied, now led downwards in twisted, tangled chaos. The raffle of cordage on the foretop could soon be cleared with a knife, and there was still half a tin of biscuit, but Jim had not given a thought to getting water when below, and after a trial, he found it impossible to swallow the dust-dry crumbs of biscuit without a drink. He could still survive up there, but it was no longer the snug little oasis that Jordan had made it. He curled himself up, dog-like, against the bitter wind, but many cold hours passed before his shuddering body lost consciousness.
Skipper John Dunn of the steam tug Liverpool swung his ship to face wind and tide, rang down "Stop engines" and bawled "Let go!" to the man standing by the anchor winch. Then he turned to the uniformed figure beside him — Walter Blunt, of Her Majesty's Customs and Excise, Harwich — "There you are, then, Walter. That's the best I can do for you. Looks a mess, don't she ?"
"Not a sign of life, John. Not a sign. Let's try a couple of toots." He reached up to the siren lanyard and sent a series of long mournful blasts echoing round the shapeless black hulk. "All gone, mister, every man jack," he said.
"All right, then. Don't blow off all my head of steam."
"We should have come out last night, John, when we first got the message about the lifeboat being picked up. Might have saved a few."
"Think so ? Not on your life! My guess is they all went overboard on the morning tide. Look at the deck, the way it's been swept. Poor swabs — nothing we could have done. We should only have drowned ourselves as well."
"Ay, ay. Well, I'd better have a look-see, I reckon. Can you put me aboard her ?"
"Ay, you can have the small boat. Daren't go alongside in this swell. And don't be long; I don't trust my anchor in this sand. Get back aboard in half an hour or you can row yourself back to Harwich."
Two seamen busied themselves in launching the small boat, and the Customs man took up the Skipper's glass and put it to his eye, sweeping it round the eastern horizon. What he saw made him give a quick groan of anger: "There they are. Skipper — the blasted vultures! I knew it." What he had seen was only a scattered row of black triangles on the horizon, like sharks' fins in a tropic sea. But he knew that he was seeing the tops of the topsails of the salvage smacks as they beat to windward towards the wreck.
"What is it?" asked the Skipper, "the salvagers?" (Like all East Coast seamen, he pronounced the word to rhyme with "wagers".)
"Ay — those damned pirates. They're only waiting for us to clear off, so that they won't have to bother with any survivors. I'll have to stay on the wreck, then, and keep them off. They'll strip it in two tides if I don't."
"Look here, Walter: if you make up your mind to stay on that wreck I won't be answerable for you. That'll turn over any minute, like as not. Talk sense, man. You've got a missis and three kids in Harwich. There's always been salvagers, and there always will be. You can't stop them on your own. Their fathers were all smugglers — it's in the blood."
"Well, I'll put up an official warning on the wreck anyway. Much good that'll do," said Blunt sullenly, as he swung himself into the boat.
He was a serious and conscientious officer, and gave the decks of both halves of the stricken Sardis a thorough search, hallooing constantly and listening for a reply. He stood at the base of the foremast, gazing thoughtfully upwards at the broken mast and its litter of gear. But from the deck nothing showed of Jim's body, and the young man lay silent and unconscious, and heard nothing of the shouts and footsteps below. He lay there like one dead as the dinghy danced away across the narrow gap of water to the tug. The paddle-wheels churned the water, and half an hour later the Liverpool was hull-down on a course for Harwich. After its brief ebb, the full tide of emptiness returned to that evil place.
It was three hours later, almost on the stroke of noon, when the first smack shot up head to wind, with all her canvas flapping briskly, and nosed gently up under the lee bow of the wreck. She was a black-tarred twenty-ton cutter, with the beautiful high bow and low square stern of the estuary smack. Her working sails were tanned a rich brown, and a neat plate on her stern announced her as the Maud of Whitstable. The Skipper, standing aft at his tiller as she scraped alongside, grunted at the tall tow-headed giant for'ard: "Catch hold of her, Shiner." Up went a stout hook at the end of a heaving-line; three times it clattered against the iron-work above their heads, only to fall back. The fourth time, it held securely. "Up you go, my Bert," said the Skipper, and a small monkey of a man swarmed rapidly up to gain the deck. Down came the Maud's sails with a run, and five minutes later she was safely moored head and stern, with great bundles of hazel-sticks slung between her and the wreck to deaden the ceaseless bumping; Bert Anderson, her Mate, had found and lowered a rope ladder, and Dukey Smith, king of the Kent salvagers, was rubbing his great grubby paws and grinning triumphantly into the little leathery face of his mate: "See, Bert, it's same as I told yer. Them Essex fellers have got a good two hours' sailing to git here, by the time they gone round Long Sand Head and punched a foul tide. Lucky we was orf Margate way." And he dealt the little ginger-moustached man a tremendous playful blow in the ribs.