Dukey stood sullenly silent and unmoving as Jim turned and scrambled up on to the bow of the barge. Chubb had long since cast off the moorings; he now threw himself at the mangle-like handle of the winch, and as the cogs went clinking round, the wire tautened, and the bow of the barge began to swing out from the quay wall and the smack. Jim took the other handle, and the two men conversed quietly as their backs rose and fell. "Jim," said Chubb, "just behind you there's a good old iron crank off the lee-board winch. I've got one this side too. We'll stand by with them if they rush us. Don't git that gurt old knife out again for Gawd's sake. That makes me shiver all through."
"They won't rush us, Skipper. They're too busy — look!" Dukey and Bert were now squatting amidships, striving to haul out the vast, floundering body of the third hand.
Ten minutes later the Trilby, with all sail set, was heading on the starboard tack towards the end of Sheppey. Jim, still trembling all over from the horrible strain of his game of bluff, was trying vainly to hold a match still enough to light his pipe. Herbert Chubb, his hands on the brass wheel, watched him with sympathetic amusement and a good deal of respect. "Well, I don't know, Jim, if you ain't a tidy bloke, beggared if you ain't. I never thought you had it in you. Cor, that put the wind up me proper, the way you came aft with that old carver. That's one of them culch-axes, ain't it? What they use for opening oysters?"
"I don't know. I found it in the forepeak, all rusty, and sharpened it up."
"Suppose he'd jumped at you? You wouldn't have stuck him with it, would you ?"
"I don't know. You know what they say about a cornered rat."
"Anyhow, I hope you don't treat all your Skippers like that. You'd have a good target 'ere!" He took one hand from the spokes to slap his comfortable paunch. "Well, Jim, I reckon you'll like it aboard here all right. 'Course it's hard work, but it ain't all spit and polish and compasses and sextants like the big ships. If we was a deep-sea packet you'd have to git up the old log an' stream it now."
The log! It was still a nasty jolt to hear the word, but it was not so bad now. Not nearly so bad.
Chapter XVII
Herbert Chubb was in high good humour, and the brisk, cool westerly wind brought the sound of his song for'ard to where Jim and Charlie Skinner were coiling down the mooring ropes on the hatch. It was dusk on the Monday after Jim's dramatic desertion from the Maud; after a sultry day of rain the sky had cleared from the west, and a firm following breeze with the first of autumn in it was pushing the barge Trilby down the endless winding Thames reaches. Astern, the ruffled water was still whitish in colour, but the crowded cranes and warehouses of Woolwich and Silvertown showed stark and jet-black against the sky on either beam.
Old Charlie grinned, and motioned with his head towards the Skipper: "Ole man's happy tonight."
"Don't blame him," said Jim. "After all, he's laying the barge up for a fortnight tomorrow. I suppose that's the only chance you ever get for a holiday — while she's being refitted?"
"Ah, that's all, mate. Never stop long any other time. Hark at him, though: he's like a two-year-old!"
"Why's he in such a hurry, though ? He left Wapping with only half a cargo. That can't be very good business."
Charlie gave a throaty chuckle: "Ah, you know why that is, Jim? 'Is missis! Gaw, I never heard a tongue like what she's got. She don't half give old Herbert some ear-'ole sometimes. Well, her niece is getting married over at Heme Bay there tomorrow, and Herbert's gotter go to give her away, being as her dad's gorn. If he ain't home dressed up in his best clobber by ten o'clock he's gonner pay for it, mate! She won't half create!"
Jim laughed. It was rough justice, for Chubb had spent the last three days bawling at him irritably for his clumsy bungling with the strange ropes and winches of the barge. It was odd how all Chubb's good humour seemed to disappear once the moorings were let go.
"Jim!" came a shout from aft. "Time we were showing a light. Come back here and get the lamps out. And don't slop the oil about, neither."
As Jim came back up on deck with the red and green side-lights he heard Chubb give a snort of disgust. "Look at that!" he said, "the way this tug feller's coming across. Sight too fast for this time of night."
Jim followed his gaze out into the dusk on the starboard side; out on the bow, showing faintly against the Woolwich wharves, was the white wedge of a huge bow-wave. The paddle-tug which was pushing it rapidly towards them could hardly be made out, though the smoke from her spindly funnel streamed away clearly against the sky.
"I know these river tug-men; they go the shortest way if they can, never mind about giving way to sail. Trouble is, when you're running free at a good lick, like we are, you can't do much about it. You see, he'll try to slip across our bows; he won't give way till the last minute.' Chubb stuck out his jaw, and grasped the wheel more firmly. "Well, I ain't giving way to him."
And then, suddenly, it was like the Sardis on the Kentish Knock: disaster struck in seconds, before anyone could raise a hand. Watching with tight jaws and a dry mouth, Jim sensed all in a moment that the tug would not clear them ahead — she had misjudged their speed — and that she had held on too long to alter course. From being a phantom in the darkness to starboard, she became in an instant two hundred tons of steel right under the bow of the barge. At his elbow, Chubb was bellowing desperate curses, and Jim found himself yelling wordless shouts of panic. Then he was aware of Chubb wrenching and spinning the wheel to starboard; for a few violent seconds the lit portholes and glaring stoke-hole of the tug, and the white faces of her crew were tearing past a few feet from the port side. Then the great sails felt the full weight of the wind; the air was filled with their deep thunder, and the lightly-laden barge heeled until the white water seethed and raced along the deck-planks themselves. A second later there was a terrifying crunch as Trilby's bluff bows hit the steep wash of the tug; there was a choking scream from the hatch-top, and for a horrible moment they saw the pitching figure of the old Mate silhouetted against the foaming wake of the tug. Then he had gone, and the tug was a blur astern.
A second after that Jim had launched himself over the port rail. As he dived he caught the first words of the Skipper's shout: "Stop where you..." then he was five feet down in the stinking yellow river water, thrashing his arms and kicking off his heavy leather sea-boots. He surfaced, choking and gasping, to find himself in a silence and stillness more frightening than the panic and tumult of the last few minutes. Treading water, he revolved himself slowly, and soon saw, twenty yards away, a faint gleam of foam as the old man clawed and trampled the water. As he swam towards the struggling man, Jim tried to summon up to his mind what he had heard and read about life-saving; in the end, all he could remember was that he should approach from behind. But was there time? He was horribly hampered by his thick serge trousers and was making slow progress; he decided to approach in a half-circle and hope for the best, but when he was still five yards off, old Charlie seemed to twist round in the water, and the wildly-staring eyes looked right at him. As he reached out his arms towards the old man, Jim felt the lean, bony despairing hands fasten in an iron grip on the folds of his jersey under his chin. He trod water, trying to shout instructions, but his mouth and nose were suddenly filled with water, and they were both six feet down, wrestling murderously.