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

it

did not satisfy me. The difficulty of working myself along in that

slow fashion I foresaw would be so enormous that I very well might die

of sheer exhaustion before I got clear of the weed-tangle—which

must extend outward, as I knew from my guess at the time that I had

taken in drifting in through it, for a very long way. What I had been

counting upon ever since I had found the launch was in having part of

the work, and the heaviest part, done by her engine; my part to be the

breaking of a passage, while the motive power was to be supplied by

the screw. But of course if the screw fouled, as it certainly would

foul with the loose weed all around it, that would be the end of my

hopeful plan.

 

This consideration of the matter reduced it to a definite problem.

What was needed was some sort of protection for the screw that would

keep the weed away from it and yet would allow it to work freely: and,

having the case thus clearly stated, the thought presently occurred to

me that I could secure this protection by building out from the stern

of the boat, so that the screw would be enclosed in it, some sort of

an iron cage. That arrangement, I conceived, would meet the

requirements of the case fully; and being come to my conclusion I

resigned myself to still another long delay while I carried my plan

into execution, and so went to bed at last hopefully—but well knowing

that this fresh piece of work that I had cut out for myself would be

hard to do.

 

I certainly did not overestimate the amount of labor involved in my

cage-building. I was a good three weeks over it. But I was kept up to

the collar by my conviction that without the cage I had no chance of

succeeding in my project; and so I got it finished at last. And then I

considered that my boat really was ready to take the water; and the

cat and I had another banquet in celebration of the long step that we

had taken toward our deliverance—only this time I did not give an

altogether free rein to my rejoicing, being fearful that some other

difficulty might present itself suddenly and bring me up again with a

round turn.

 

The boat being ready—for I could think of nothing more to do to

her—I had still to launch her, and the first step toward that end was

breaking out a section in the steamer’s side. Luckily the stock of

cold-chisels aboard the Ville de Saint Remy was a good one; but I

dulled them all twice over—and weary work at the grindstone I had

sharpening them again—before I had chipped away the bindings of those

endless rivets and had the satisfaction of seeing the big section of

iron plate between two of her iron ribs pitch outboard and splash down

through the weed into the sea.

 

As I have said, the bow compartment of the steamer was full of water,

and this brought her main-deck so low down forward that the boat had

only to be slid out almost on a level through the hole that I had

made. But to slide her that way—which seems easy, because I have

happened to put it glibly—was quite a different thing. With steam

power to work the capstan I could have got the boat overboard in no

time; but without steam power the launching went desperately slowly,

and was altogether the hardest piece of work that I had to do in the

whole of my long hard job.

 

The boat had stood all along in the cradle that had been built to hold

her steady for the voyage. This was a very stout wooden framework

built up from two heavy beams joined by cross-pieces, and all so well

bolted together that it was very solid and firm. In this the boat

rested snugly and was held fast by rope lashings; and the cradle

itself—resting on the lower hatch and projecting on each side of

it—was lashed to the hatch ringbolts so as to be safe against

shifting in a heavy sea. I could have removed the cradle by taking it

to pieces, but that would not have helped matters; and the plan that I

decided upon—liking it better because all this woodwork around and

under the boat would protect her from harm as she went overboard—was

to weight the cradle with iron bars that would cause it to sink away

from beneath the boat when they took the water, and then to work it up

with jack-screws until I could get rollers under it and so send them

both together over the side.

 

How long I worked over this job I really do not know; but I do know

that at the time it seemed as though it never would come to an end.

First of all I had the rollers to make from another topgallant mast

that I got down, and when these were finished I had to go at the frame

of the cradle with a pair of jack-screws and raise it, by fractions of

an inch, until I could get my rollers under it one at a time. I think

that it was the deadly dullness of this jack-screw work that I most

resented—the stupid monotony of doing precisely the same sort of

utterly wearying work all day long and for day after day. But in the

end I got it finished: all my rollers properly in place, and the

cradle made fast to hold it from starting before I was ready to have

it go—although of that there was not much danger, for while the

steamer had a decided pitch forward she lay on an even keel.

 

At first I was for sending my boat overboard the minute that I got the

last roller under her; but I had the sense, luckily, to take a reef in

this brisk intention as the thought struck me that I must have open

water to launch her in or else very likely have boat and cradle

together stuck fast in the weed. And so I set myself to clearing a

little pool into which I could launch her; and as I carried this work

on I came quickly to a realizing sense of what was before me when I

should begin to break a way through the weed for my boat’s passage,

and to the conviction that had I tried to make my voyage without steam

to help me I never should have got through at all.

 

In point of fact, the weed was so thick and so firmly matted together

that I almost could walk on it; and when I had knocked loose a couple

of doors from their hinges and had thrown them overboard—taking two,

so that I might move one ahead of the other as my cutting advanced—I

had firm enough standing place from which I could slash away. So tough

was the mass that I was a whole day in uncovering a space less than

forty feet long by twenty broad; and when my launching-pool was

finished it had the look of a little pond in a meadow surrounded by

solid banks.

 

All this showed me that even with the screw to push while I cleared a

way for the boat’s passage I should have my hands full; but it also

put into my head a notion that helped me a good deal in the end. This

was to rig on the straight stem of my boat a set of guide-bars

projecting forward in which I could work perpendicularly a cross-cut

saw, and in that way to cut a slit in the weed—which would be widened

by the boat’s nose thrusting into it as the screw shoved her onward,

and so would enable me to squeeze along. And as this was a matter easy

of accomplishment—being only to double over a couple of iron bars so

that there would be a slit a half inch wide for the saw to travel in,

and to bolt them fast to the top and bottom of the boat’s stem—I did

it immediately; and it worked so well when I came to try it that I was

glad enough that I had had so lucky a thought. Indeed, had I known

how well it would turn out I should have gone a step farther and

rigged my saw to run by steam power—setting up a frame in the bows to

hold a wheel carrying a pin on which the saw could play and to which I

could make fast a bar from my piston-rod—and in that way saved myself

from the longest bit of back-breaking work that ever I had to do. But

that was a piece of foresight that came afterward, and so did me

no good.

 

When my guide-bars were in place, and the saw made ready to slip into

them by taking off one of its handles—and I had still a spare saw to

fall back upon in the event of the first one breaking—my boat was

ready to go overboard into the open water, where she would lie while I

put aboard of her my coal and stores. But the work that was before me,

as I thus came close to it, loomed up very large; and so did the

doubts which beset me as to how my voyage would end. Indeed, it was in

a spirit far from exultant that at last I cut the lashings which held

the cradle; and then with the tackle that I had ready got the heavy

mass started—and in a couple of minutes had my boat safely overboard

and floating free, as the cradle sunk away from under her, carried

down by its lading of iron bars.

 

But, whatever was to come of it, the launching of my boat started me

definitely along a fresh line of adventure, and whether I liked it or

not I had to make the best of it: and so I stated the case to my

cat—who had got scared and run off into a corner while the launching

was in progress—when he came marching up to me and seated himself

beside me gravely, as I stood in the break in the steamer’s side

looking down at the boat that I hoped would set us free.

XXXVI

HOW MY CAT PROMISED ME GOOD LUCK

 

What would have been most useful to me as foresight, but was only

aggravating to me as hindsight—which happened to be the way that I

got it—was the very sensible notion that I might have put all of my

stores, and even a good part of my coal, aboard the boat before she

was decked over and launched. A few tons more or less would have made

no difference in moving her; but having to put those extra tons aboard

of her over the side of the steamer, and then to drag them through the

cabin and through the awkward little hatch, and at last to stow them

by the light of a lantern in her stillingly close hot hold—all that

made a lot of difference to me. However, I could not foresee

everything; and I think, on the whole, that I really did foresee most

of what I wanted pretty well.

 

Of provisions I took along enough to last me, by a rough calculation,

for three months; being pretty well satisfied that unless within that

time I got through the weed-tangle to open water—over which I could

make my way to land, or on which I might fall in with a passing

vessel—I never would get free at all. And I was the more disposed to

keep down my lading of provisions because I