‘All along, sir.’
‘Hands to the capstan, then. Are you ready at the word, there for’ard?’
‘Ready, aye ready, sir.’
‘Silence, fore and aft. Heave. Heave handsomely.’ The capstan turned, the hawser tightened. It led from the capstan through a block on deck to another block on the
mainmast head, thence to the head of the topmast, down to the square fid-hole in its heel, and so back to the topmast head, where it was made fast; bands of spun-yarn held it to the mast at intervals, and as it tightened so it began to raise the head. The topmast, a great iron-hooped column of wood some forty feet long, lay across the waist, its ends protruding far out on either side; as its head rose, so Jack called orders to the party on the other side to ease its heel in over the rail, timing each heave to the roll. ‘Pawl, there. Stand to your bars. Heave. Heave and rally. Pawl.’ The mast tilted up, nearer and nearer to the vertical. Now it was all inboard, no longer sloping but perfectly upright, swaying with the roll, an enormous, dangerous pendulum in spite of the controlling guys. Its head pointed at the
trestle-trees, at the block high on the mainmast: the men in the top guided it through them, and still it rose with the turning of the capstan, to pause with its heel a few feet above the deck while they put on the cap. Up again, and they cut the spun-yarn as it reached the block: another pause, and they set the square over the mainmast head, banging it down with a maul, a thump-thump-thump that echoed through the silent, attentive ship.
‘They must be getting the cap over,’ said Stephen’s patient in the sick-bay, a young topman. ‘Oh, sir, I wish I was there He’ll splice the mainbrace for sure – it was night on eight bells when you come below.’
‘You will be there presently,’ said Stephen. ‘but none of your mainbrace, none of your nasty grog, my friend, until you learn to avoid the ladies of Portsmouth Point, and the fireships of the Sally-Port. No ardent spirits at all for you. Not a drop, until you are cured.
And even then, you would be far better with mild unctuous cocoa, or burgoo’
‘Which she told me she was a virgin,’ said the sailor, in a low, resentful tone.
The mast rose up and up, the thrust coming from nearer and nearer to the fid-hole as the spun-yarn bands were cut in succession. They had Cast off the hawser in favour of the top-rope; they had got the topmast shrouds over, the stays and the backstays; and now the top-tackle was swaying it up with a smooth, steady motion interrupted only by the roll of the ship. A hitch at this point – the top-rope parting, a block-spindle breaking – might be fatal. The last cautious six inches, and the fid-hole appeared above the trestle-trees. The captain of the top waved his hand:
Jack cried ‘Pawl, there.’ The captain of the top banged home the long iron fid, cried
‘Launch ho’, and it was done. The topmast could no longer plunge like a gigantic arrow down through the deck, down through the ship’s bottom, and send them all to their long account. They eased the top-rope and the mast settled on its fid with a gentle groan, firmly supported below, fore, aft, and on either side.
Jack let out a sigh, and when Pullings reported ‘Main-topmast swayed up, sir,’ he smiled.
‘Very good, Mr Pullings,’ he said. ‘Let the laniards be well greased and bowsed taut, and
then pipe to supper. The people have worked well, and I believe we may splice the mainbrace.’
‘How pleasant it is to see the sun,’ he called over the taffrail, later in the afternoon.
‘Eh?’ said Stephen, looking up from a tube thrust deep into the water.
‘I said how pleasant it was to see the sun,’ said Jack, smiling down at him there in the barge – smiling, too, with general benevolence. He was warm through and through after months of English drizzle; the mild wind caressed him through his open shirt and old canvas trousers; behind him the work was going steadily along, but now it was a matter for expert hands, the bosun, his mates, the quartermasters and forecastlemen; the mere hauling on ropes was over, and the mass of the crew forward were making cheerful noises
– with this day’s rational work, with no cleaning and no harassing, the feeling aboard had changed. The charming weather and the extra allowance of rum had also helped, no doubt.
‘Yes,’ said Stephen. ‘It is. At a depth of two feet, Fahrenheit’s thermometer shows no less than sixty-eight degrees. A southern current, I presume. There is a shark following up, a shark of the blue species, a carcharias. He revels in the warmth.’
‘Where is he? Do you see him? Mr Parslow there, fetch me a couple of muskets.’
‘He is under the dark belly of the ship. But no doubt he will come out presently. I give him gobbets of decayed flesh from time to time.’
From the sky forward there was a guttural shriek -a man falling from the yard, grabbing at air, almost motionless for a flash of time, head back, strained madly up; then falling, faster, faster, faster. He hit a backstay. It bounced him clear of the side and he splashed into the sea by the mizen-chains.
‘Man overboard!’ shouted a dozen hands, flinging things into the water and running about.
‘Mr Goodridge, bring her to the wind, if you please,’ said Jack, kicking off his shoes and diving from the rail. ‘How fresh – perfect!’ he thought as the bubbles rushed thundering past his ears and the good taste of clean sea filled his nose. He curved upwards, looking at the rippled silver underside of the surface, rose strongly out of the water, snorting and shaking his yellow head, saw the man floundering fifty yards away. Jack was a powerful rather than a graceful swimmer, and he surged through the water with his head and shoulders out, like a questing dog, fixing the point in case the man should sink He reached him -starting eyes, inhuman face belching water, stretching up, the terror of the deep (like most sailors he could not swim)
–
circled him, seized him by the root of his pigtail and said, ‘Easy, easy, now, Bolton Hold up ‘ Bolton writhed and grasped with convulsive strength Jack kicked him free and bawled right into his ear, ‘Clasp your hands, you fool. Clasp your hands, I say There s a shark just by, and if you splash he’ll have you.’
The word shark went home even to that terrified, half-drunk, water-logged mind. Bolton clasped his hands as though the force of his grip might keep him safe: he went perfectly
rigid: jack kept him afloat, and there they lay, rising and falling on the swell until the boat picked them up.
Bolton sat confused, obscurely ashamed and stupid in the bottom of the boat, gushing water; to cover his confusion he assumed a lumpish catalepsy, and had to be handed up the side. ‘Carry him below,’ said Jack. ‘You had better have a look at him, Doctor, if you would be so kind.’
‘He has a contusion on his chest,’ said Stephen, coming
back to where Jack stood dripping on the quarterdeck, drying as he leaned on the rail and enjoyed the progress of the work on the running rigging. ‘But no ribs are broken. May I congratulate you upon saving him? The boat would never have come up in time. Such promptitude of mind -such decision! I honour it.’
‘It was pretty good, was it not?’ said Jack. ‘This is capital, upon my word,’ – nodding to the mainmast – ‘and at this rate we shall have the bentincks bent tomorrow. Did you smoke that? I said, the bentincks bent. Ha, ha, ha!’
Was he making light of it out of coxcombery, fanfaronade? From embarrassment? No, Stephen decided. It was as genuine as his mirth at his ignoble tiny pun, or adumbration of a pun, the utmost limit of naval wit.
‘Was you not afraid,’ he asked, ‘when you reflected upon the shark – his notorious voracity?’
‘Him? Oh, sharks are mostly gammon, you know: all cry and no wool. Unless there’s blood about, they prefer galley leavings any day. On the West Indies station I once went in after a jolly and dived plump on to the back of a huge great brute: he never turned a hair.’
‘Tell me, is this a matter of frequent occurrence with you? Does it in no way mark an epocha in your life, at all?’
‘Epocha? Why, no; I can’t say it does. Bolton here must make the twenty-second since I first went to sea:
or maybe the twenty-third. The Humane chaps sent me a gold medal once. Very civil in them, too; with a most obliging letter. I pawned it in Gibraltar.’