THE SHIP THAT FOUND HERSELF
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t was her first voyage, and though she was but a cargo-steamer oftwenty-five hundred tons, she was the very best of her kind, theoutcome of forty years of experiments and improvements in frameworkand machinery; and her designers and owner thought as much of her asthough she had been the _Lucania_. Anyone can make a floating hotelthat will pay expenses, if he puts enough money into the saloon, andcharges for private baths, suites of rooms, and such like; but inthese days of competition and low freights every square inch of acargo-boat must be built for cheapness, great hold-capacity, and acertain steady speed. This boat was, perhaps, two hundred and fortyfeet long and thirty-two feet wide, with arrangements that enabled herto carry cattle on her main and sheep on her upper deck if she wantedto; but her great glory was the amount of cargo that she could storeaway in her holds. Her owners--they were a very well-known Scotchfirm--came round with her from the north, where she had been launchedand christened and fitted, to Liverpool, where she was to take cargofor New York; and the owner's daughter, Miss Frazier, went to and froon the clean decks, admiring the new paint and the brass work, and thepatent winches, and particularly the strong, straight bow, over whichshe had cracked a bottle of champagne when she named the steamer the_Dimbula_. It was a beautiful September afternoon, and the boat in allher newness--she was painted lead-colour with a red funnel--lookedvery fine indeed. Her house-flag was flying, and her whistle from timeto time acknowledged the salutes of friendly boats, who saw that shewas new to the High and Narrow Seas and wished to make her welcome. "And now," said Miss Frazier, delightedly, to the captain, "she's areal ship, is n't she? It seems only the other day father gave theorder for her, and now--and now--is n't she a beauty!" The girl wasproud of the firm, and talked as though she were the controllingpartner. "Oh, she's no so bad," the skipper replied cautiously. "But I'm sayin'that it takes more than christenin' to mak' a ship. In the nature o'things, Miss Frazier, if ye follow me, she's just irons and rivets andplates put into the form of a ship. She has to find herself yet." "I thought father said she was exceptionally well found." "So she is," said the skipper, with a laugh. "But it's this way wi'ships, Miss Frazier. She's all here, but the parrts of her have notlearned to work together yet. They've had no chance." "The engines are working beautifully. I can hear them." "Yes, indeed. But there's more than engines to a ship. Every inch ofher, ye'll understand, has to be livened up and made to work wi' itsneighbour--sweetenin' her, we call it, technically." "And how will you do it?" the girl asked. "We can no more than drive and steer her, and so forth; but if we haverough weather this trip--it's likely--she'll learn the rest by heart!For a ship, ye'll obsairve, Miss Frazier, is in no sense a reegid bodyclosed at both ends. She's a highly complex structure o' various an'conflictin' strains, wi' tissues that must give an' tak' accordin' toher personal modulus of elasteecity." Mr. Buchanan, the chiefengineer, was coming toward them. "I'm sayin' to Miss Frazier, here,that our little _Dimbula_ has to be sweetened yet, and nothin' but agale will do it. How's all wi' your engines, Buck?" "Well enough--true by plumb an' rule, o' course; but there's nospontaneeity yet." He turned to the girl. "Take my word, Miss Frazier,and maybe ye'll comprehend later; even after a pretty girl'schristened a ship it does not follow that there's such a thing as aship under the men that work her." "I was sayin' the very same, Mr. Buchanan," the skipper interrupted. "That's more metaphysical than I can follow," said Miss Frazier,laughing. "Why so? Ye're good Scotch, an'--I knew your mother's father, he wasfra' Dumfries--ye've a vested right in metapheesics, Miss Frazier,just as ye have in the _Dimbula_," the engineer said. "Eh, well, we must go down to the deep watters, an' earn Miss Frazierher deevidends. Will you not come to my cabin for tea?" said theskipper. "We'll be in dock the night, and when you're goin' back toGlasgie ye can think of us loadin' her down an' drivin' her forth--allfor your sake." In the next few days they stowed some four thousand tons' dead weightinto the _Dimbula_, and took her out from Liverpool. As soon as shemet the lift of the open water, she naturally began to talk. If youlay your ear to the side of the cabin next time you are in a steamer,you will hear hundreds of little voices in every direction, thrillingand buzzing, and whispering and popping, and gurgling and sobbing andsqueaking exactly like a telephone in a thunder-storm. Wooden shipsshriek and growl and grunt, but iron vessels throb and quiver throughall their hundreds of ribs and thousands of rivets. The _Dimbula_ wasvery strongly built, and every piece of her had a letter or number, orboth, to describe it; and every piece had been hammered, or forged,or rolled, or punched by man, and had lived in the roar and rattle ofthe shipyard for months. Therefore, every piece had its own separatevoice in exact proportion to the amount of trouble spent upon it.Cast-iron as a rule, says very little; but mild steel plates andwrought-iron, and ribs and beams that have been much bent and weldedand riveted, talk continuously. Their conversation, of course, is nothalf as wise as our human talk, because they are all, though they donot know it, bound down one to the other in a black darkness, wherethey cannot tell what is happening near them, nor what will overtakethem next. As soon as she had cleared the Irish coast a sullen gray-headed oldwave of the Atlantic climbed leisurely over her straight bows, and satdown on her steam-capstan used for hauling up the anchor. Now thecapstan and the engine that drove it had been newly painted red andgreen; besides which, nobody likes being ducked. "Don't you do that again," the capstan sputtered through the teeth ofhis cogs. "Hi! Where's the fellow gone?" The wave had slouched overside with a plop and a chuckle; but "Plentymore where he came from," said a brother-wave, and went through andover the capstan, who was bolted firmly to an iron plate on the irondeck-beams below. "Can't you keep still up there?" said the deck-beams. "What's thematter with you? One minute you weigh twice as much as you ought to,and the next you don't!" "It is n't my fault," said the capstan. "There's a green brute outsidethat comes and hits me on the head." "Tell that to the shipwrights. You've been in position for months andyou've never wriggled like this before. If you are n't careful you'llstrain _us_." "Talking of strain," said a low, rasping, unpleasant voice, "are anyof you fellows--you deck-beams, we mean--aware that those exceedinglyugly knees of yours happen to be riveted into our structure--_ours_?" "Who might you be?" the deck-beams inquired. "Oh, nobody in particular," was the answer. "We're only the port andstarboard upper-deck stringers; and if you persist in heaving andhiking like this, we shall be reluctantly compelled to take steps." Now the stringers of the ship are long iron girders, so to speak, thatrun lengthways from stern to bow. They keep the iron frames (what arecalled ribs in a wooden ship) in place, and also help to hold the endsof the deck-beams, which go from side to side of the ship. Stringersalways consider themselves most important, because they are so long. "You will take steps--will you?" This was a long echoing rumble. Itcame from the frames--scores and scores of them, each one abouteighteen inches distant from the next, and each riveted to thestringers in four places. "We think you will have a certain amount oftrouble in _that_;" and thousands and thousands of the little rivetsthat held everything together whispered: "You will. You will! Stopquivering and be quiet. Hold on, brethren! Hold on! Hot Punches!What's that?" Rivets have no teeth, so they cannot chatter with fright; but they didtheir best as a fluttering jar swept along the ship from stern to bow,and she shook like a rat in a terrier's mouth. An unusually severe pitch, for the sea was rising, had lifted the bigthrobbing screw nearly to the surface, and it was spinning round in akind of soda-water--half sea and half air--going much faster than wasproper, because there was no deep water for it to work in. As it sankagain, the engines--and they were triple expansion, three cylinders ina row--snorted through all their three pistons, "Was that a joke, youfellow outside? It's an uncommonly poor one. How are we to do our workif you fly off the handle that way?" "I did n't fly off the handle," said the screw, twirling huskily atthe end of the screw-shaft. "If I had, you'd have been scrap-iron bythis time. The sea dropped away from under me, and I had nothing tocatch on to. That's all." "That's all, d'you call it?" said the thrust-block whose business itis to take the push of the screw; for if a screw had nothing to holdit back it would crawl right into the engine-room. (It is the holdingback of the screwing action that gives the drive to a ship.) "I know Ido my work deep down and out of sight, but I warn you I expectjustice. All I ask for is bare justice. Why can't you push steadilyand evenly instead of whizzing like a whirligig, and making me hotunder all my collars." The thrust-block had six collars, each facedwith brass, and he did not wish to get them heated. All the bearings that supported the fifty feet of screw-shaft as itran to the stern whispered: "Justice--give us justice." "I can only give you what I can get," the screw answered. "Look out!It's coming again!" He rose with a roar as the _Dimbula_ plunged, and"whack--flack--whack--whack" went the engines, furiously, for they hadlittle to check them. "I'm the noblest outcome of human ingenuity--Mr. Buchanan says so,"squealed the high-pressure cylinder. "This is simply ridiculous!" Thepiston went up savagely, and choked, for half the steam behind it wasmixed with dirty water. "Help! Oiler! Fitter! Stoker! Help! I'mchoking," it gasped. "Never in the history of maritime invention hassuch a calamity overtaken one so young and strong. And if I go, who'sto drive the ship?" "Hush! oh, hush!" whispered the Steam, who, of course, had been to seamany times before. He used to spend his leisure ashore in a cloud, ora gutter, or a flower-pot, or a thunder-storm, or anywhere else wherewater was needed. "That's only a little priming, a littlecarrying-over, as they call it. It'll happen all night, on and off. Idon't say it's nice, but it's the best we can do under thecircumstances." "What difference can circumstances make? I'm here to do my work--onclean, dry steam. Blow circumstances!" the cylinder roared. "The circumstances will attend to the blowing. I've worked on theNorth Atlantic run a good many times--it's going to be rough beforemorning." "It is n't distressingly calm now," said the extra-strong frames--theywere called web-frames--in the engine-room. "There's an upward thrustthat we don't understand, and there's a twist that is very bad for ourbrackets and diamond-plates, and there's a sort of west-north-westerlypull that follows the twist, which seriously annoys us. We mentionthis because we happened to cost a good deal of money, and we feelsure that the owner would not approve of our being treated in thisfrivolous way." "I'm afraid the matter is out of owner's hand, for the present," saidthe Steam, slipping into the condenser. "You're left to your owndevices till the weather betters." "I would n't mind the weather," said a flat bass voice below; "it'sthis confounded cargo that's breaking my heart. I'm thegarboard-strake, and I'm twice as thick as most of the others, and Iought to know something." The garboard-strake is the lowest plate in the bottom of a ship, andthe _Dimbula's_ garboard-strake was nearly three-quarters of an inchmild steel. "The sea pushes me up in a way I should never have expected," thestrake grunted, "and the cargo pushes me down, and, between the two, Idon't know what I'm supposed to do." "When in doubt, hold on," rumbled the Steam, making head in theboilers. "Yes; but there's only dark, and cold, and hurry, down here; and howdo I know whether the other plates are doing their duty? Thosebulwark-plates up above, I've heard, ain't more than five-sixteenthsof an inch thick--scandalous, I call it." "I agree with you," said a huge web-frame by the main cargo-hatch. Hewas deeper and thicker than all the others, and curved half-way acrossthe ship in the shape of half an arch, to support the deck where deckbeams would have been in the way of cargo coming up and down. "I workentirely unsupported, and I observe that I am the sole strength ofthis vessel, so far as my vision extends. The responsibility, I assureyou, is enormous. I believe the money-value of the cargo is over onehundred and fifty thousand pounds. Think of that!" "And every pound of it is dependent on my personal exertions." Herespoke a sea-valve that communicated directly with the water outside,and was seated not very far from the garboard-strake. "I rejoice tothink that I am a Prince-Hyde Valve, with best Para rubber facings.Five patents cover me--I mention this without pride--five separate andseveral patents, each one finer than the other. At present I amscrewed fast. Should I open, you would immediately be swamped. This isincontrovertible!" Patent things always use the longest words they can. It is a trickthat they pick up from their inventors. "That's news," said a big centrifugal bilge-pump. "I had an idea thatyou were employed to clean decks and things with. At least, I've usedyou for that more than once. I forget the precise number, inthousands, of gallons which I am guaranteed to throw per hour; but Iassure you, my complaining friends, that there is not the leastdanger. I alone am capable of clearing any water that may find its wayhere. By my Biggest Deliveries, we pitched then!" The sea was getting up in workmanlike style. It was a dead westerlygale, blown from under a ragged opening of green sky, narrowed on allsides by fat, gray clouds; and the wind bit like pincers as it frettedthe spray into lacework on the flanks of the waves. "I tell you what it is," the foremast telephoned down its wire-stays."I'm up here, and I can take a dispassionate view of things. There'san organized conspiracy against us. I'm sure of it, because everysingle one of these waves is heading directly for our bows. The wholesea is concerned in it--and so's the wind. It's awful!" "What's awful?" said a wave, drowning the capstan for the hundredthtime. "This organized conspiracy on your part," the capstan gurgled, takinghis cue from the mast. "Organized bubbles and spindrift! There has been a depression in theGulf of Mexico. Excuse me!" He leaped overside; but his friends tookup the tale one after another. "Which has advanced----" That wave hove green water over the funnel. "As far as Cape Hatteras----" He drenched the bridge. "And is now going out to sea--to sea--to sea!" The third went free inthree surges, making a clean sweep of a boat, which turned bottom upand sank in the darkening troughs alongside, while the broken fallswhipped the davits. "That's all there is to it," seethed the white water roaring throughthe scuppers. "There's no animus in our proceedings. We're onlymeteorological corollaries." "Is it going to get any worse?" said the bow-anchor, chained down tothe deck, where he could only breathe once in five minutes. "Not knowing, can't say. Wind may blow a bit by midnight. Thanksawfully. Good-bye." The wave that spoke so politely had travelled some distance aft, andfound itself all mixed up on the deck amidships, which was a well-decksunk between high bulwarks. One of the bulwark plates, which was hungon hinges to open outward, had swung out, and passed the bulk of thewater back to the sea again with a clean smack. "Evidently that's what I'm made for," said the plate, closing againwith a sputter of pride. "Oh, no, you don't my friend!" The top of a wave was trying to get in from the outside, but as theplate did not open in that direction, the defeated water spurted back. "Not bad for five-sixteenths of an inch," said the bulwark-plate. "Mywork, I see, is laid down for the night"; and it began opening andshutting, as it was designed to do, with the motion of the ship. "We are not what you might call idle," groaned all the framestogether, as the _Dimbula_ climbed a big wave, lay on her side at thetop, and shot into the next hollow, twisting in the descent. A hugeswell pushed up exactly under her middle, and her bow and stern hungfree with nothing to support them. Then one joking wave caught her upat the bow, and another at the stern, while the rest of the waterslunk away from under her just to see how she would like it; so shewas held up at her two ends only, and the weight of the cargo and themachinery fell on the groaning iron keels and bilge-stringers. "Ease off! Ease off, there!" roared the garboard-strake. "I wantone-eighth of an inch fair play. D' you hear me, you rivets!" "Ease off! Ease off!" cried the bilge-stringers. "Don't hold us sotight to the frames!" "Ease off!" grunted the deck-beams, as the _Dimbula_ rolled fearfully."You've cramped our knees into the stringers, and we can't move. Easeoff, you flat-headed little nuisances." Then two converging seas hit the bows, one on each side, and fell awayin torrents of streaming thunder. "Ease off!" shouted the forward collision-bulkhead. "I want to crumpleup, but I'm stiffened in every direction. Ease off, you dirty littleforge-filings. Let me breathe!" All the hundreds of plates that are riveted to the frames, and makethe outside skin of every steamer, echoed the call, for each platewanted to shift and creep a little, and each plate, according to itsposition, complained against the rivets. "We can't help it! _We_ can't help it!" they murmured in reply. "We'reput here to hold you, and we're going to do it; you never pull ustwice in the same direction. If you'd say what you were going to donext, we'd try to meet your views." "As far as I could feel," said the upper-deck planking, and that wasfour inches thick, "every single iron near me was pushing or pullingin opposite directions. Now, what's the sense of that? My friends, letus all pull together." "Pull any way you please," roared the funnel, "so long as you don'ttry your experiments on _me_. I need fourteen wire ropes, all pullingin different directions, to hold me steady. Is n't that so?" "We believe you, my boy!" whistled the funnel-stays through theirclinched teeth, as they twanged in the wind from the top of the funnelto the deck. "Nonsense! We must all pull together," the decks repeated. "Pulllengthways." "Very good," said the stringers; "then stop pushing sideways when youget wet. Be content to run gracefully fore and aft, and curve in atthe ends as we do." "No--no curves at the end! A very slight workmanlike curve from sideto side, with a good grip at each knee, and little pieces welded on,"said the deck-beams. "Fiddle!" cried the iron pillars of the deep, dark hold. "Who everheard of curves? Stand up straight; be a perfectly round column, andcarry tons of good solid weight--like that! There!" A big sea smashedon the deck above, and the pillars stiffened themselves to the load. "Straight up and down is not bad," said the frames, who ran that wayin the sides of the ship, "but you must also expand yourselvessideways. Expansion is the law of life, children. Open out! open out!" "Come back!" said the deck-beams, savagely, as the upward heave of thesea made the frames try to open. "Come back to your bearings, youslack-jawed irons!" "Rigidity! Rigidity! Rigidity!" thumped the engines. "Absolute,unvarying rigidity--rigidity!" "You see!" whined the rivets, in chorus. "No two of you will ever pullalike, and--and you blame it all on us. We only know how to go througha plate and bite down on both sides so that it can't, and must n't,and shan't move." "I've got one-fraction of an inch play, at any rate," said thegarboard-strake, triumphantly. So he had, and all the bottom of theship felt the easier for it. "Then we're no good," sobbed the bottom rivets. "We were ordered--wewere ordered--never to give; and we've given, and the sea will comein, and we'll all go to the bottom together! First we're blamed foreverything unpleasant, and now we have n't the consolation of havingdone our work." "Don't say I told you," whispered the Steam, consolingly; "but,between you and me and the last cloud I came from, it was bound tohappen sooner or later. You _had_ to give a fraction, and you've givenwithout knowing it. Now, hold on, as before." "What's the use?" a few hundred rivets chattered. "We've given--we'vegiven; and the sooner we confess that we can't keep the ship together,and go off our little heads, the easier it will be. No rivet forgedcan stand this strain." "No one rivet was ever meant to. Share it among you," the Steamanswered. "The others can have my share. I'm going to pull out," said a rivet inone of the forward plates. "If you go, others will follow," hissed the Steam. "There's nothing socontagious in a boat as rivets going. Why, I knew a little chap likeyou--he was an eighth of an inch fatter, though--on a steamer--to besure, she was only twelve hundred tons, now I come to think of it--inexactly the same place as you are. He pulled out in a bit of a bobbleof a sea, not half as bad as this, and he started all his friends onthe same butt-strap, and the plates opened like a furnace door, and Ihad to climb into the nearest fog-bank, while the boat went down." "Now that's peculiarly disgraceful," said the rivet. "Fatter than me,was he, and in a steamer not half our tonnage? Reedy little peg! Iblush for the family, sir." He settled himself more firmly than everin his place, and the Steam chuckled. "You see," he went on, quite gravely, "a rivet, and especially a rivetin your position, is really the one indispensable part of the ship." The Steam did not say that he had whispered the very same thing toevery single piece of iron aboard. There is no sense in telling toomuch truth. And all that while the little _Dimbula_ pitched and chopped, and swungand slewed, and lay down as though she were going to die, and got upas though she had been stung, and threw her nose round and round incircles half a dozen times as she dipped; for the gale was at itsworst. It was inky black, in spite of the tearing white froth on thewaves, and, to top everything, the rain began to fall in sheets, sothat you could not see your hand before your face. This did not makemuch difference to the ironwork below, but it troubled the foremast agood deal. "Now it's all finished," he said dismally. "The conspiracy is toostrong for us. There is nothing left but to----" "_Hurraar! Brrrraaah! Brrrrrrp!_" roared the Steam through thefog-horn, till the decks quivered. "Don't be frightened, below. It'sonly me, just throwing out a few words, in case any one happens to berolling round to-night." "You don't mean to say there's any one except us on the sea in suchweather?" said the funnel in a husky snuffle. "Scores of 'em," said the Steam, clearing its throat; "_Rrrrrraaa!Brraaaaa! Prrrrp!_ It's a trifle windy up here; and, Great Boilers!how it rains!" "We're drowning," said the scuppers. They had been doing nothing elseall night, but this steady thrash of rain above them seemed to be theend of the world. "That's all right. We'll be easier in an hour or two. First the windand then the rain: Soon you may make sail again! _Grrraaaaaah!Drrrraaaa! Drrrp!_ I have a notion that the sea is going down already.If it does you'll learn something about rolling. We've only pitchedtill now. By the way, are n't you chaps in the hold a little easierthan you were?" There was just as much groaning and straining as ever, but it was notso loud or squeaky in tone; and when the ship quivered she did not jarstiffly, like a poker hit on the floor, but gave with a supple littlewaggle, like a perfectly balanced golf-club. "We have made a most amazing discovery," said the stringers, one afteranother. "A discovery that entirely changes the situation. We havefound, for the first time in the history of ship-building, that theinward pull of the deck-beams and the outward thrust of the frameslocks us, as it were, more closely in our places, and enables us toendure a strain which is entirely without parallel in the records ofmarine architecture." The Steam turned a laugh quickly into a roar up the fog-horn. "Whatmassive intellects you great stringers have," he said softly, when hehad finished. "We also," began the deck-beams, "are discoverers and geniuses. We areof opinion that the support of the hold-pillars materially helps us.We find that we lock up on them when we are subjected to a heavy andsingular weight of sea above." Here the _Dimbula_ shot down a hollow, lying almost on herside--righting at the bottom with a wrench and a spasm. "In these cases--are you aware of this, Steam?--the plating at thebows, and particularly at the stern--we would also mention the floorsbeneath us--help _us_ to resist any tendency to spring." The framesspoke, in the solemn, awed voice which people use when they have justcome across something entirely new for the very first time. "I'm only a poor puffy little flutterer," said the Steam, "but I haveto stand a good deal of pressure in my business. It's all tremendouslyinteresting. Tell us some more. You fellows are so strong." "Watch us and you'll see," said the bow-plates, proudly. "Ready,behind there! Here's the Father and Mother of Waves coming! Sit tight,rivets all!" A great sluicing comber thundered by, but through thescuffle and confusion the Steam could hear the low, quick cries of theironwork as the various strains took them--cries like these: "Easy,now--easy! _Now_ push for all your strength! Hold out! Give afraction! Holdup! Pull in! Shove crossways! Mind the strain at theends! Grip, now! Bite tight! Let the water get away from under--andthere she goes!" The wave raced off into the darkness, shouting, "Not bad, that, ifit's your first run!" and the drenched and ducked ship throbbed to thebeat of the engines inside her. All three cylinders were white withthe salt spray that had come down through the engine-room hatch; therewas white fur on the canvas-bound steam-pipes, and even thebright-work deep below was speckled and soiled; but the cylinders hadlearned to make the most of steam that was half water, and werepounding along cheerfully. "How's the noblest outcome of human ingenuity hitting it?" said theSteam, as he whirled through the engine-room. "Nothing for nothing in this world of woe," the cylinders answered, asthough they had been working for centuries, "and precious little forseventy-five pounds' head. We've made two knots this last hour and aquarter! Rather humiliating for eight hundred horse-power, is n't it?" "Well, it's better than drifting astern, at any rate. You seem ratherless--how shall I put it?--stiff in the back than you were." "If you'd been hammered as we've been this night, you would n't bestiff--iff--iff, either. Theoreti--retti--retti--cally, of course,rigidity is the thing. Purrr--purr--practically, there has to be alittle give and take. _We_ found that out by working on our sides forfive minutes at a stretch--chch--chh. How's the weather?" "Sea's going down fast," said the Steam. "Good business," said the high-pressure cylinder. "Whack her up, boys.They've given us five pounds more steam"; and he began humming thefirst bars of "Said the Young Obadiah to the Old Obadiah," which, asyou may have noticed, is a pet tune among engines not built for highspeed. Racing-liners with twin-screws sing "The Turkish Patrol" andthe overture to the "Bronze Horse," and "Madame Angot," till somethinggoes wrong, and then they render Gounod's "Funeral March of aMarionette" with variations. "You'll learn a song of your own some fine day," said the Steam, as heflew up the fog-horn for one last bellow. Next day the sky cleared and the sea dropped a little, and the_Dimbula_ began to roll from side to side till every inch of iron inher was sick and giddy. But luckily they did not all feel ill at thesame time: otherwise she would have opened out like a wet paper box. The Steam whistled warnings as he went about his business: it is inthis short, quick roll and tumble that follows a heavy sea that mostof the accidents happen, for then everything thinks that the worst isover and goes off guard. So he orated and chattered till the beams andframes and floors and stringers and things had learned how to lockdown and lock up on one another, and endure this new kind of strain. They found ample time to practise, for they were sixteen days at sea,and it was foul weather till within a hundred miles of New York. The_Dimbula_ picked up her pilot and came in covered with salt and redrust. Her funnel was dirty gray from top to bottom; two boats had beencarried away; three copper ventilators looked like hats after a fightwith the police; the bridge had a dimple in the middle of it; thehouse that covered the steam steering-gear was split as with hatchets;there was a bill for small repairs in the engine-room almost as longas the screw-shaft; the forward cargo-hatch fell into bucket-staveswhen they raised the iron cross-bars; and the steam-capstan had beenbadly wrenched on its bed. Altogether, as the skipper said, it was "apretty general average." "But she's soupled," he said to Mr. Buchanan. "For all her dead weightshe rode like a yacht. Ye mind that last blow off the Banks? I amproud of her, Buck." "It's vera good," said the chief engineer, looking along thedishevelled decks. "Now, a man judgin' superfeecially would say wewere a wreck, but we know otherwise--by experience." Naturally everything in the _Dimbula_ fairly stiffened with pride, andthe foremast and the forward collision-bulkhead who are pushingcreatures, begged the Steam to warn the Port of New York of theirarrival. "Tell those big boats all about us," they said. "They seem totake us quite as a matter of course." It was a glorious, clear, dead calm morning, and in single file, withless than half a mile between each, their bands playing and theirtug-boats shouting and waving handkerchiefs, were the _Majestic_, the_Paris_, the _Touraine_, the _Servia_, the _Kaiser Wilhelm II._, andthe _Werkendam_, all statelily going out to sea. As the _Dimbula_shifted her helm to give the great boats clear way, the Steam (whoknows far too much to mind making an exhibition of himself now andthen) shouted: "Oyez! Oyez! Oyez! Princes, Dukes, and Barons of the High Seas! Knowye by these presents, we are the _Dimbula_, fifteen days nine hoursfrom Liverpool, having crossed the Atlantic with four thousand ton ofcargo for the first time in our career! We have not foundered. We arehere, _'Eer! 'Eer!_ We are not disabled. But we have had a time whollyunparalleled in the annals of ship-building! Our decks were swept! Wepitched; we rolled! We thought we were going to die! _Hi! Hi!_ But wedid n't. We wish to give notice that we have come to New York all theway across the Atlantic through the worst weather in the world; and weare the _Dimbula_! We are--arr--ha--ha--ha-r-r-r!" The beautiful line of boats swept by as steadily as the procession ofthe Seasons. The _Dimbula_ heard the _Majestic_ say, "Hmph!" and the_Paris_ grunted, "How!" and the _Touraine_ said, "Oui!" with a littlecoquettish flicker of steam; and the _Servia_ said "Haw!" and the_Kaiser_ and the _Werkendam_ said, "Hoch!" Dutch fashion--and that wasabsolutely all. "I did my best," said the Steam, gravely, "but I don't think they weremuch impressed with us, somehow. Do you?" "It's simply disgusting," said the bow-plates. "They might have seenwhat we've been through. There is n't a ship on the sea that hassuffered as we have--is there, now?" "Well, I would n't go so far as that," said the Steam, "because I'veworked on some of those boats, and sent them through weather quite asbad as the fortnight that we've had, in six days; and some of them area little over ten thousand tons, I believe. Now I've seen the_Majestic_, for instance, ducked from her bows to her funnel; and I'vehelped the _Arizona_, I think she was, to back off an iceberg she metwith one dark night; and I had to run out of the _Paris's_engine-room, one day, because there was thirty foot of water in it. Ofcourse, I don't deny----" The Steam shut off suddenly, as a tug-boat,loaded with a political club and a brass band, that had been to see aNew York Senator off to Europe, crossed their bows, going to Hoboken.There was a long silence that reached, without a break, from thecut-water to the propeller-blades of the _Dimbula_. Then a new, big voice said slowly and thickly, as though the owner hadjust waked up: "It's my conviction that I have made a fool of myself." The Steam knew what had happened at once; for when a ship findsherself all the talking of the separate pieces ceases and melts intoone voice, which is the soul of the ship. "Who are you?" he said, with a laugh. "I am the _Dimbula_, of course. I've never been anything else exceptthat--and a fool!" The tug-boat, which was doing its very best to be run down, got awayjust in time, its band playing clashily and brassily a popular butimpolite air: In the days of old Rameses--are you on?In the days of old Rameses--are you on?In the days of old Rameses,That story had paresis,Are you on--are you on--are you on? "Well, I'm glad you've found yourself," said the Steam. "To tell thetruth I was a little tired of talking to all those ribs and stringers.Here's Quarantine. After that we'll go to our wharf and clean up alittle, and--next month we'll do it all over again." I A TRIP ACROSS A CONTINENT[1] Harvey N. Cheyne, a spoiled darling, "perhaps fifteen yearsold," "an American--first, last, and all the time," had"staggered over the wet decks to the nearest rail," aftertrying to smoke a "Wheeling stogie." "He was fainting fromseasickness, and a roll of the ship tilted him over therail," where a "gray mother-wave tucked him under one arm."He was picked up by the fishing schooner _We're Here_, andafter many marvellous experiences among the sailors arrivedin port, a happier and wiser fellow. His telegram to hisfather brings the following result. Cheyne was flying to meet the only son, so miraculously restored tohim. The bear was seeking his cub, not the bulls. Hard men who hadtheir knives drawn to fight for their financial lives put away theweapons and wished him God-speed, while half a dozen panic-smittentin-pot roads perked up their heads and spoke of the wonderful thingsthey would have done had not Cheyne buried the hatchet. [Footnote 1: A selection from "Captains Courageous," copyrighted byThe Century Company.] It was a busy week-end among the wires; for, now that their anxietywas removed, men and cities hastened to accommodate. Los Angelescalled to San Diego and Barstow that the Southern California engineersmight know and be ready in their lonely roundhouses; Barstow passedthe word to the Atlantic and Pacific; and Albuquerque flung it thewhole length of the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe management, eveninto Chicago. An engine, combination-car with crew, and the great andgilded "Constance" private car were to be "expedited" over those twothousand three hundred and fifty miles. The train would takeprecedence of one hundred and seventy-seven others meeting andpassing; despatchers and crews of every one of those said trains mustbe notified. Sixteen locomotives; sixteen engineers, and sixteenfiremen would be needed--each and every one the best available. Twoand one-half minutes would be allowed for changing engines, three forwatering, and two for coaling. "Warn the men, and arrange tanks andchutes accordingly; for Harvey Cheyne is in a hurry, a hurry--hurry,"sang the wires. "Forty miles an hour will be expected, and divisionsuperintendents will accompany this special over their respectivedivisions. From San Diego to Sixteenth Street, Chicago, let the magiccarpet be laid down. Hurry! oh, hurry!" "It will be hot," said Cheyne, as they rolled out of San Diego in thedawn of Sunday. "We're going to hurry, mamma, just as fast as ever wecan; but I really don't think there's any good of your putting on yourbonnet and gloves yet. You'd much better lie down and take yourmedicine. I'd play you a game o' dominoes, but it's Sunday." "I'll be good. Oh, I _will_ be good. Only--taking off my bonnet makesme feel as if we'd never get there." "Try to sleep a little, mamma, and we'll be in Chicago before youknow." "But it's Boston, father. Tell them to hurry." The six-foot drivers were hammering their way to San Bernardino andthe Mohave wastes, but this was no grade for speed. That would comelater. The heat of the desert followed the heat of the hills as theyturned east to the Needles and the Colorado River. The car cracked inthe utter drought and glare, and they put crushed ice to Mrs. Cheyne'sneck, and toiled up the long, long grades, past Ash Fork, towardFlagstaff, where the forests and quarries are, under the dry, remoteskies. The needle of the speed-indicator flicked and wagged to andfro, the cinders rattled on the roof, and a whirl of dust sucked afterthe whirling wheels. The crew of the combination sat on their bunks,panting in their shirt-sleeves, and Cheyne found himself among themshouting old, old stories of the railroad that every trainman knows,above the roar of the car. He told them about his son, and how the seahad given up its dead, and they nodded and spat and rejoiced with him;asked after "her, back there," and whether she could stand it if theengineer "let her out a piece," and Cheyne thought she could.Accordingly the great fire-horse was "let out" from Flagstaff toWinslow, till a division superintendent protested. But Mrs. Cheyne, in the boudoir stateroom, where the French maid,sallow-white with fear, clung to the silver door-handle, only moaned alittle and begged her husband to bid them "hurry." And so they droppedthe dry sands and moon-struck rocks of Arizona behind them, andgrilled on till the crash of the couplings and the wheeze of thebrake-hose told them they were at Coolidge by the Continental Divide. Three bold and experienced men--cool, confident, and dry when theybegan; white, quivering, and wet when they finished their trick atthose terrible wheels--swung her over the great lift from Albuquerqueto Glorietta and beyond Springer, up and up to the Raton Tunnel on theState line, whence they dropped rocking into La Junta, had sight ofthe Arkansaw, and tore down the long slope to Dodge City, where Cheynetook comfort once again from setting his watch an hour ahead. There was very little talk in the car. The secretary and typewritersat together on the stamped Spanish-leather cushions by theplate-glass observation-window at the rear end, watching the surge andripple of the ties crowded back behind them, and, it is believed,making notes of the scenery. Cheyne moved nervously between his ownextravagant gorgeousness and the naked necessity of the combination,an unlit cigar in his teeth, till the pitying crews forgot that he wastheir tribal enemy, and did their best to entertain him. At night the bunched electrics lit up that distressful palace of allthe luxuries, and they fared sumptuously, swinging on through theemptiness of abject desolation. Now they heard the swish of awater-tank, and the guttural voice of a Chinaman, the clink-clink ofhammers that tested the Krupp steel wheels, and the oath of a trampchased off the rear-platform; now the solid crash of coal shot intothe tender; and now a beating back of noises as they flew past awaiting train. Now they looked out into great abysses, a trestlepurring beneath their tread, or up to rocks that barred out half thestars. Now scaur and ravine changed and rolled back to jaggedmountains on the horizon's edge, and now broke into hills lower andlower, till at last came the true plains. At Dodge City an unknown hand threw in a copy of a Kansas papercontaining some sort of an interview with Harvey, who had evidentlyfallen in with an enterprising reporter, telegraphed on from Boston.The joyful journalese revealed that it was beyond question their boy,and it soothed Mrs. Cheyne for a while. Her one word "hurry" wasconveyed by the crews to the engineers at Nickerson, Topeka, andMarceline, where the grades are easy, and they brushed the Continentbehind them. Towns and villages were close together now, and a mancould feel here that he moved among people. "I can't see the dial, and my eyes ache so. What are we doing?" "The very best we can, mamma. There's no sense in getting in beforethe Limited. We'd only have to wait." "I don't care. I want to feel we're moving. Sit down and tell me themiles." Cheyne sat down and read the dial for her (there were some miles whichstand for records to this day), but the seventy-foot car never changedits long steamer-like roll, moving through the heat with the hum of agiant bee. Yet the speed was not enough for Mrs. Cheyne; and the heat,the remorseless August heat, was making her giddy; the clock-handswould not move, and when, oh, when would they be in Chicago? It is not true that, as they changed engines at Fort Madison, Cheynepassed over to the Amalgamated Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers anendowment sufficient to enable them to fight him and his fellows onequal terms for evermore. He paid his obligations to engineers andfiremen as he believed they deserved, and only his bank knows what hegave the crews who had sympathized with him. It is on record that thelast crew took entire charge of switching operations at SixteenthStreet, because "she" was in a doze at last, and Heaven was to helpany one who bumped her. Now the highly paid specialist who conveys the Lake Shore andMichigan Southern Limited from Chicago to Elkhart is something of anautocrat, and he does not approve of being told how to back up to acar. None the less he handled the "Constance" as if she might havebeen a load of dynamite, and when the crew rebuked him they did it inwhispers and dumb show. "Pshaw!" said the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe men, discussing lifelater, "we were n't runnin' for a record. Harvey Cheyne's wife, shewas sick back, an' we did n't want to jounce her. Come to think of it,our runnin' time from San Diego to Chicago was 57.54. You can tellthat to them Eastern way-trains. When we're tryin' for a record, we'll let you know." To the Western man (though this would not please either city) Chicagoand Boston are cheek by jowl, and some railroads encourage thedelusion. The Limited whirled the "Constance" into Buffalo and thearms of the New York Central and Hudson River (illustrious magnateswith white whiskers and gold charms on their watch-chains boarded herhere to talk a little business to Cheyne), who slid her gracefullyinto Albany, where the Boston and Albany completed the run fromtide-water to tide-water--total time, eighty-seven hours andthirty-five minutes or three days, fifteen hours and one half. Harveywas waiting for them.
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