Off he went, on his sixty mile ride to Bahia, whilst I pushed off back to the boat. I had only to do about ten miles on the back of the hacksaw they lent me, but that was enough and to spare. I wasn’t a bit surprised to learn later, that, on arriving in Bahia, Captain Dodd fell off in a dead faint. I should have split up the middle long before.
I was given half a sheep, as a sort of peace token, I suppose. It had been killed on the spot, and was still bleeding profusely. This I had slung across in front of me, and accompanied by three most choice villains, set off on the return journey to the boat.
These horses are evidently born to walk, my old saw-bones seemed so anyway; though I will say, the way they could take those precipices of sand, beat creation, and came very near beating me, and would have done, most likely if I hadn’t just leaned back and unhesitatingly seized the beast by the tail. Let ‘em laugh, thought I, it’s better than getting mixed up with bleeding sheep, and both going over his nose. When we arrived on the beach, what with digging him in the ribs with my bare heels, and whooping and yelling like a Red Indian, I managed to get up a gait, something of a cross between a trot and a canter. Whatever the hybrid motion was, the effect was awful, for every time I came down, he was sure to be in the act of coming up. This, in conjunction with his serrated vertebrae did not improve matters. Fortunately I hadn’t far to go to fetch the boat. The combined effect of the fellows lying under her lee was grand
The picture, from their standpoint, was me, bare-back on a horse, with the bleeding remains of the Skipper hung in front, bawling and yelling for assistance, whilst being viciously pursued by three perfectly typical cut-throats.
One could hardly blame them for seizing boat hooks and stretchers to hold off the attack. I think the old pirates astern of me were registering astonishment too, but their surprise and amusement was, that anyone should want a horse to run.
Though we could not speak a word of their lingo, they knew we were mad Englishmen, and that, I suppose, covered everything. We were soon very good friends. Seeing the way they had been received, and that in any case there was nothing worth stealing, they eventually returned to their respective hutments, whilst we tried to find the soft side of the perishing cold sand, and so spent the night with one man keeping a bright look out in case out friends of the sombreros should change their minds!
In the morning when we got back to the ship, we found the mate had taken the bull by the horns, and after rigging all the hoses and buckets available, had whipped off the hatches, and with improvised smoke helmets, attacked the fire at its base, and got it out; if not exactly out, at any rate, sufficiently under control for all hands to get to work, and dig down night and day, until they had got a trunk way clean through the lower hold. Also, we hammered up the ends of several lengths of three inch iron piping, after drilling it full of holes. These we drove down into the coal in different places, and then tucked the business end of a fire hose. By the time Captain Dodd arrived with a steam launch — or as they called it a tug — the fire wasn’t worrying us a bit. It wasn’t out, but we’d definitely got it where we wanted.
With the “tug” also came a pilot who gave us the cheery news that if a S.W. gale had by chance sprung up, the whole area where we’d chosen to anchor would have become a mass of breakers.
The next order was to “Man the windlass and loose all sail.” We didn’t need any hurrying either. The “tug,” bless its little heart, took the tow rope, and promptly got it round her propeller.
Some cheery soul suggested we should hoist her in the davits to clear it. Meanwhile, instead of towing us, we did the towing, whilst they cleared the rope, and before that came about we’d fetched the narrow part of the channel, close hauled. We went about, but before we could get way on her to go about again, she stuck her nose into the opposite bank, fortunately mud.
With blessings pouring from aloft, we furled all sail, and in case the reader has forgotten, I’ll say again that she was a four masted barque.
We decided that the function of our little matey, with the smoke and stink, should in future be confined to just pulling our head round each time we went about. That seemed a fairly simple proposition, but again it proved too much.
After getting our nose out of the mud, and once again responding to the order “set all sail” (which in the ordinary way, comes once a passage, and that once is quite enough) we stood over to the opposite bank, and, of course, rammed that. I’ll just say we again furled all sail and leave it at that. Later, we once again “set all sail.” We had steam on deck by now, to the winches and windlass, otherwise the order would have been futile. The spirit was willing, all right, but there is even a limit with old shellbacks, though you would not perhaps think it, to watch them. Anyway, we’d reached that limit, so when she inevitably took the mud again, and we’d got the canvas stowed once more, we decided she could stay there, till the tide rose and lifted her off. That would be in the morning, so we hailed our little chum, and told him to come and tie up alongside. Whether he didn’t like being out all night, or not, I don’t know, but anyway the agent who was on board the little hooker hailed us, and with a very ultra Oxford accent, imparted the information that they’d “sprung a leak, and couldn’t pump, unless the main engines were going." (I heard one of our chaps say that he didn’t know she had any, and if those were the main engines probably the auxiliary would be a foot pump.)
Whether the yarn was rigged on the spur of the moment it is hard to say, they didn’t wait to argue, but hiked off up the river as hard as they could go. Neither did they show up again, so we remained at anchor as it was hopeless to attempt to beat up a narrow channel with a ship of that size.
Later the following day the wind came away light from the S.W. This was a fair wind, so we up anchor, and under six topsails and foresail picked our own way with what ought to have been the help of the pilot, but it wasn’t and she soon stuck in the mud again. After that, we decided to dispense with all local help and rely on our own instinct and a couple of good lead lines, with the result she was soon anchored within some ten miles of Bahia. That was as far as we dare go, till we could get hold of a real live tug. Meantime we must do the journey, when required, in the one remaining boat. I wasn’t sorry, as it gave me a real good excuse for rigging the pinnace up with mast, sails, and false keel, all complete. I was always crazy on boat sailing, anyway.
One day, coming off with a Mr. Jones, Lloyd’s Surveyor, the Skipper addressed me by name. Lloyds Surveyor pricked up his ears and said, “What’s your name, Lightoller?” I could tell by the easy way it slipped off his tongue that he’d said it many times before.
Now some ten years previously, a relation of mine, one Charles Lightoller, had left England (no, not necessarily for the country’s good, though I will admit he was hot stuff) and no track or trace of him remained. That branch of the family had tried for years to get some authentic news of whether he was alive or dead; but the United States had seemingly swallowed him up, when he went in at New York. I asked the Surveyor whom he had known of that name. Of course, it was Charles, all right, and not only that but he had died whilst actually a partner with Jones in that out of the way little spot in the Argentine of South American (and once again, how small, etc.).