In the Sargasso Sea - Thomas A. Janvier (top books to read txt) 📗

up to look at his hurt and to comfort him—I gave a shout of

delight on my own account that was a good deal louder than any of my

poor cat’s yells of pain. For there before me was a very stout-looking

and large steam-launch—thirty-two feet over all, as I found when I

came to measure her—stowed snugly in a cradle set athwart-ship and

looking all ready to be put overboard into the sea. And at finding in

this unexpected fashion what I had been so long looking for, and had

quite done with hoping for, it is no wonder that I shouted with joy.

 

My cat coming limping to me to be pitied and cared for, holding up his

pinched paw and with little miaus asking for my sympathy quite like a

Christian, I had first of all to give him my attention. But his hurt

was not a very serious one—the flesh not being cut, and no bones

broken—and when I had comforted him as well as I could, until I got

him soothed a little, I put him down out of my arms that I might

examine carefully my great prize; but first of all opening all the

ports so that I might have plenty of light for what I wanted to do.

 

Coming to this deliberate survey, I found that the launch truly enough

was complete, but that she was very far from being ready to take the

water; for while all her parts were there—and even duplicates of her

more important pieces, in readiness against a break-down—most of her

fittings and all of her machinery was lying inside of her boxed for

transportation; being arranged that way, I suppose, because she would

have been far too heavy to swing into the snug place where I found her

and out again with everything bolted fast. She was a very beautiful

little boat, evidently intended for a pleasure craft—but very strong

and seaworthy, too; and it no doubt was to keep her in good order for

delivery that she had been stowed between-decks for the long voyage.

Indeed, only with a steam-winch and a good many men to handle her,

could she have been got down there; and the first of my uncomfortable

thoughts about her, of the many that I had first and last, came while

I was taking stock of her equipment—as I fell to wondering how in the

world I should manage, with only a cat to help me, ever to get her

overboard into the sea.

 

As to assembling her parts, and so making her ready for cruising, I

had no doubts whatever. That piece of work was directly in the line

of my training and I felt entirely secure about it; but even on that

score I quaked a good deal at the size of the contract to be taken by

a single pair of hands, and at thought of the long, long while that

would be required to carry it through. Yet the hope that came with

finding this boat put such heart into me that my spirits did not go

down far. Working on her—aside from the pleasure that any man with a

natural love for mechanics finds in serious and difficult labor with

his hands—would be a constant delight to me because of what it would

be leading to; and in every moment of my work I would have to sustain

me the thought that each rivet set in place and each bolt fastened

brought me appreciably nearer to being set free.

 

Having cursorily finished with the boat, I continued my survey to her

surroundings; that I might plan roughly my scheme of work upon her,

and that I might plan also for getting her launched when my work upon

her should be done. She was stowed on the main-deck—in a place that

probably was intended for the use of third-class passengers, when such

were carried—and the machine-shop was so close to her that in the

matter of fetching tools and so on my steps would be well saved.

Directly over her was the forward hatch; through which she had been

lowered and set in place in the cradle previously made ready for her,

and there fixed firm and fast. For a moment I had the fancy that I

might get up steam to work the donkey-engine and so hoist her out

again by that same way, and overboard too. But a very little

reflection showed me that this airily formed plan must be abandoned,

as all my work on her then would have to be done far away from the

machine-shop and with the additional disadvantage that through the

long time that certainly must pass before I could get her finished she

would lie open to the daily heavy rains. And then I had the much more

reasonable notion—though the amount of extra labor that it involved

was not encouraging to contemplate—that I would do my work on her

where she lay; and when I had finished her that I would cut loose a

sufficient number of plates from the side of the steamer to make a

hole big enough to get her overboard that way.

 

But having the hatch directly over where she was lying, though I could

not get her up through it, made my undertaking a good deal easier and

more comfortable for me. Even with all the ports open I would have had

but little light to work by; and, what was of even more importance in

that hot misty region, I would have had little fresh air—and still

less when I had set a-going my forge. But with the hatch off I could

have all the light that I needed and as much fresh air as was to be

had—with the advantage that the hatch could be set in place every

night when I went off duty and not opened again in the morning until

the rain was at an end: so preserving my machinery against the rust

that pretty much would have ruined it—for all that it was well

tallowed—had my slow building gone on in the open air.

 

My preliminary investigations being thus well ended, and the morning

ended too, I piped all hands to dinner; that is to say, I whistled to

my cat—who had been sitting still and watching me pretty solemnly,

his friskiness being for the time taken out of him by the pain in his

paw—and when he perceived that I was paying some attention to him

again he came limping to me on his three good legs and said with a

miau that if I pleased he would prefer going to his dinner in my arms.

And when I picked him up—as, indeed, I had to, for he positively

insisted upon my carrying him—he forgot about his hurt and fell to

purring to me at a great rate and to making little gentle thrusts

against my arm with the fore paw that was sound. And so we went aft in

great friendship and contentment and had a gay dinner together: the

cat sitting on the table opposite to me with all possible decorum—but

manifesting his daintiness by refusing to eat anything but tinned

chicken, and only the white meat at that!

XXXIV

I END A GOOD JOB WELL, AND GET A SET-BACK

 

When my meal was finished I set myself first of all to getting off the

hatch beneath which my boat lay; and this proved to be a bigger job

than I had counted upon—each of its sections being so heavy that I

could not manage it without tackle, and even with tackle the work took

me a good hour. My plan of operations had included removing the hatch

every morning and setting it back again every night, but when I found

how much energy and time would be wasted in that way I changed my

front a little and got at the same result along another line. All that

I needed was a covering for the hatch that would keep the rain out;

and what I did, therefore, was to knock together a light grating of

wood to fit over it—sloping the grating downward on each side from a

sort of a ridge pole—on which a tarpaulin could be stretched; and in

that way I got shortly to a water-tight covering for my hatch that I

could shift back and forth quickly and without any trouble at all. But

the whole of what remained of the afternoon was spent in getting

that piece of preliminary work finished to my mind.

 

The next morning I set myself to the examination of the stuff stowed

in the boat—the several parts which I would have to put together in

order to make my craft ready for the sea—and for this job also a

great deal of preliminary arrangement was required. Many of the

pieces—as the boiler, the cylinder, the shaft, the screw, and the

sections of the cabin—were too heavy for me to lift without tackle;

and as they all had to be got out and arranged in order ready for use,

and then in due course put aboard the boat one at a time in their

proper places, I first of all had to set up some sort of lifting

apparatus to take the place of a crane.

 

In this matter the open hatch directly over the boat again was a help

to me. Across it, running fore and aft, I stretched a heavy wire rope

on which I had placed a big block for a traveller, and carrying the

end of the rope forward to the capstan I fell to work with the

hand-bars and got it strained so taut that it was like a bar of iron.

Then to the traveller block I made fast my hoisting tackle—and so was

able to swing up the heavy pieces from where they were stowed, and to

run them along the taut rope until they were clear of the boat on

either side, and then to let them down upon the deck: where they would

remain until a reversal of this process would lift them up again and

set them in place as they were required. But even with my tackle—and

double tackle in the case of the heavier pieces—this was a

back-breaking job that took up the whole of three days.

 

However, I finished it at last, and had the boat clear and all the

pieces so arranged that as I needed them they would be ready to my

hand; and the examination that I was able to make of them, and of the

boat too after I had her empty, gave very satisfactory results. All

the parts were there, and all numbered so carefully that they could

have been assembled by much less skilful hands than mine; while the

hull of the boat was completely finished, and the sockets and

rivet-holes for attaching her fittings were all as they should be in

her frame. Farther, I could see by the little scratches here and there

on her iron-work that she had been set up and then taken apart again;

and so was sure that all was smooth for her coming together in the

right way. But, for all that I had such plain sailing before me in the

actual work of refitting her, my courage went down a little as I

perceived what a big contract I had taken, and what a very long time

must pass before I could pull it through.

 

Moreover, I saw that while the boat was well built for pleasure

cruising in smooth water—and, indeed, was so stout in her frame that

she would stand a great deal of knocking about without being the

worse for it—she by no means was prepared for the chances of an ocean

voyage. Except where her little cabin and engine-room would be—the