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

class="calibre1">two filling about half of her length amidships—she was entirely open;

and while the frame of her cabin was stoutly built, that part of it

intended to rise above the rail was arranged for sliding glass

windows—which would be smashed in a moment by a heavy dash of sea. It

was clear, therefore, that in addition to setting her up on the lines

planned for her—a big job and a long job to start with—there was a

lot more for me to do. To fit her for my purposes it would be

necessary to cover her cabin windows with planking; to deck her over

forward in order to have my stores under cover as well as to guard

against shipping enough water to swamp her in rough weather; and

finally to rig her with a mast and sail upon which to fall back for

motive-power in the event of my running out of coal. This additional

work would not, in one way, present any difficulties—it being in

itself simple and easy of accomplishment; but in another way it was

not pleasant to contemplate, since the doing of it all single-handed

would increase very greatly the time which must pass before I could

start upon my voyage. However, as consideration of that phase of the

matter only tended to discourage me, I put it out of sight as well as

I was able and set myself with a will to finishing my preliminary

work—of which there still was a good deal to do.

 

The steamer’s machine-shop, as I have said, was unusually well fitted

and supplied; but even in the short time that the vessel had been

lying abandoned in that reeking atmosphere rust had so coated

everything not shut up in lockers that all the tools in the racks and

the fittings of the lathe—although the lathe had an oil-cloth hood

over it—had to be cleaned before they could be used: a job that kept

me busy with the grindstone, and emery-cloth, and oiled cotton-waste,

for a good long while. And after that I had to get the forge in order,

and to bring up fuel for it from the coal bunkers. And in attending to

all these various matters the time slipped away so quickly that a

whole week had passed before I had done.

 

But I must say that as the cat and I labored together—though his

labors were confined to cheering me by following me about on three

legs wherever I went, and pretty much all the while talking to me in

his way so that I should not fail to take notice of him—I got more

and more lighthearted; which was natural enough, seeing that what I

was doing in itself interested me and so made the time pass quickly,

and that I had also a great swelling undercurrent of hope as I

thought of what my slow-going work would bring me to in the end.

 

When at last I fairly got started at my building I was in a still

more cheerful mood—there being such a sense of definite

accomplishment as I set each piece in its place, and such a comfort in

the tangible advance that I was making, that half the time I was

singing as I made my bolts and rivets fast. But for all my

cheerfulness I had a plenty of trouble over what I was doing; and I

was sorry enough that I had not somebody beside my cat to help me, or

that I myself had not another pair or two of hands.

 

Almost at the start, when I began to swing the pieces of machinery

inboard, I found that I had still another bit of preliminary work to

attend to before I could go on. My travelling tackle crossing the boat

amidships had worked well enough in getting the stuff out of her, but

when I came to hoisting the parts aboard and setting them exactly in

their places, and holding them steady while I made fast the rivets, it

would not in any way serve my turn. What I had to do was to stretch

another wire rope across the hatch—at right angles with and a couple

of feet above the first one, and parallel with the boat’s keel—and to

rig on this two travellers, to one or the other of which I could

transfer each piece as I got it inboard and so run it along until I

had it exactly over the place where it was to be made fast. But I was

a whole day in attending to this matter—and it was only one of the

many makeshifts to which I had to resort to accomplish what was too

much for my unaided strength; and in meeting such like side

difficulties I lost in all a good many days.

 

But though my work went very slowly, and now and then was stopped

short for a while by some obstacle that had to be overcome in any

rough and ready way that I could think of, I did get on; and at last I

had my boat together on the lines that her builders had planned. Yet

while, in a way, she was finished, there still was a weary lot to do

to her to fit her for my purposes; and in decking her over, and in

making her cabin solid, and in fitting a mast and sail to her, I spent

almost two months more.

 

All this work went slowly because I had to spend nearly as much time

in making ready for what I wanted to do as in doing it. Before I began

my planking I had to rip up from the steamer’s deck the material for

it; and this was a hard job in itself and did not give me what I

wanted when it was done—for while the stuff served well enough for my

beams and braces it was clumsily heavy for the decking of my little

launch. But it had to answer, and in the end I got it well in place

and the joints so tightly caulked that I was sure of having a dry

hold. And that my deck might the more easily turn the water in a sea

way I made it flush with the rail; and I had no hatch in

it—arranging to get to the hold by a scuttle that I set in the

forward end of the cabin—and that gave me a still better chance of

keeping dry below.

 

For my mast I got down one of the topgallant masts—and I had a close

shave to coming down with it and so ending my adventures right there.

The best way that I could think of to manage this piece of work—and I

have not since thought of any way better—was to make fast a line to

the lower end of the topgallant mast just above the cap of the

topmast and to carry this line through the top-block and so down to

the deck, and there to pass it through another block to the capstan

and haul it taut and stop it; and when all that was in order, and the

stays cut, to get up into the cross-trees and saw through the spar

just below where I had whipped it with my line. My expectation was

that as the spar parted and fell it would be held hanging by my tackle

until I could get down to the deck again and lower it away; and that

really was what did happen—only as it fell there was a bit of slack

line to take up, and this gave such a tremendous jerk to the

cross-trees that I was within an ace of being shaken out of them and

of going down to the deck with a bang. But I didn’t—which is the main

thing—and I did get my mast. It was a good deal heavier than my boat

could stand, and I had to spend a couple of days in taking it down

with a broad-axe and in finishing it with a plane until I got it as it

should be; and from the flag-staff at the steamer’s stern I got out

with very little trouble a good boom and gaff.

 

After that I had only my sail to fit; and as I did not trouble myself

to make a very neat job of it this did not take me long. Indeed, I

grudged the time that I spent on my mast and sail—close upon a

fortnight, altogether—more than any like amount of time that I gave

to my task; for my hope was strong that I would not need a sail at

all, but would be able to manage—by a way that I had thought of—to

carry enough coal with me to make my voyage under steam. But I was not

leaving anything to chance—so far as chances could be foreseen—in

the adventure that I was about to make, and so I got my sail-power all

ready to fall back upon in case my steam-power failed. And when that

bit of work was finished I was full of a joyful lightheartedness; for

my boat in every way was ready for the water, and I was come at last

to the good ending of my long job.

 

That night I made a feast in celebration of what I had accomplished,

and in hope of my greater good fortune that I believed was soon to

come—with a place duly set on the opposite side of the table for my

only guest, and with a champagne-glass beside his plate to hold his

unsweetened condensed milk (for which, when I found it among the

ship’s stores, he manifested a strong partiality) that he might lap

properly his responses to the toasts which I pledged him in

champagne. And I don’t suppose that a man and a cat ever had a merrier

meal anywhere than we had in that queer place for it that evening; nor

that any two friends ever were happier together than we were when, our

feast being ended, he went through his various tricks—of which he had

learned a great many, and with a wonderful quickness, after his paw

got well—and then settled himself for a snooze on my lap while I sat

smoking my cigar and thinking that at last I had sawn through

my prison bars.

 

And it was while I was sitting in that state of placid happiness that

suddenly I was brought up all standing by the reflection—and why it

had not come sooner to me is a mystery—that a dozen turns of the

screw of my launch in that weed-covered ocean would be enough to foul

it hopelessly, and so at the very start to cut short the voyage under

steam that I had planned.

XXXV

I AM READY FOR A FRESH HAZARD OF FORTUNE

 

For a while after this black thought came to me I was pretty much

beaten by it; but when I got steadier—and had finished kicking myself

for a fool because I had not foreseen it all along—I perceived that

the odds were not wholly against me, after all. I had, at least, a

seaworthy boat in which to make my venture, and therefore was as well

off as I had hoped to be when I had set about looking for one; and if

the plan that I had formed worked out in practice—if I could manage

to force a passage through the tangle by alternately working over the

bow of my boat to break up the weed, and over the sides to pole my

boat forward—I was a great deal better off than I had hoped to be:

for should I win my way to open water I would have steam as well as

sail power at my command.

 

But while this more reasonable view of the situation comforted me,