Saved by the Lifeboat by the Lifeboat by R. M. Ballantyne (top ten ebook reader TXT) 📕

Chapter Three. Shows what some men will do and dare for money, and what sometimes comes of it.

We must now beg the reader’s permission to allow a few more years to elapse. Eight have come and gone since the dark day when poor Mrs Boyns received that message from the sea, which cast a permanent cloud over her life. Annie Webster has become a beautiful woman, and Harry Boyns a bronzed stalwart man.

But things have changed with time. These two seldom meet now, in consequence of the frequent absence of the latter on long voyages, and when they do meet, there is not the free, frank intercourse that there used to be. In fact, Mr Webster had long ago begun to suspect that his daughter’s regard for the handsome young sailor was of a nature that bade fair to interfere with his purposed mercantile transactions in reference to her, so he wisely sent him off on voyages of considerable length, hoping that he might chance to meet with the same fate as his father, and wound up by placing him in command of one of his largest and most unseaworthy East Indiamen, in the full expectation that both captain and vessel would go to the bottom together, and thus enable him, at one stroke, to make a good round sum out of the insurance offices, and get rid of a troublesome servant!

Gloating over these and kindred subjects, Mr Webster sat one morning in his office mending a pen, and smiling in a sardonic fashion to the portrait of his deceased wife’s father, when a tap came to the door, and Harry Boyns entered.

“I have come, sir,” he said, “to tell you that the repairs done to the Swordfish are not by any means sufficient. There are at least—”

“Please do not waste time, Captain Boyns, by entering upon details,” said Mr Webster, interrupting him with a bland smile: “I am really quite ignorant of the technicalities of shipbuilding. If you will state the matter to Mr Cooper, whom I employ expressly for—”

“But, sir,” interrupted Harry, with some warmth, “I have spoken to Mr Cooper, and he says the repairs are quite sufficient.”

“Well, then, I suppose they are so.”

“I assure you, sir,” rejoined Harry, “they are not; and as the lives of passengers as well as men depend upon the vessel being in a seaworthy condition, I do trust that you will have her examined by some one more competent to judge than Mr Cooper.”

“I have no doubt of Mr Cooper’s competence,” returned Mr Webster; “but I will order a further examination, as you seem so anxious about it. Meanwhile I hope that the ship is being got ready for sea as quickly as possible.”

“There shall be no delay on my part, sir,” said Harry, rising; “the ship has been removed from the Birkenhead Docks, in which you are aware she has lain for the last eight months, and is now lying in the Brunswick Dock, taking in cargo. But I think it a very serious matter, which demands looking into, the fact that she had no sooner grounded in the dock, than she sprang a leak which instantly let twenty-eight inches of water into her, and twice, subsequently, as much as forty inches have been sounded. Yet no repairs worthy of the name have been made. All that has been done is the pumping of her out daily by the stevedore’s men when their stowing work is finished.”

“Has the agent for the underwriters visited her?” inquired Mr Webster.

“He has, sir, but he seems to be of opinion that his responsibility is at an end because a surveyor from the Mersey Docks and Harbour Board had previously visited her, and directed that she should not be loaded deeper than twenty-one feet—chalking on the side amidships the six feet six inches clear beneath which she is not to be allowed to sink.”

“Well, well,” said Mr Webster, somewhat impatiently, “I will have the matter looked into. Good morning, Captain Boyns.”

The captain bowed and left the office, and Mr Webster leant back in his chair, clasped his hands, twirled his thumbs, and smiled grimly at the old gentleman over the fireplace.

True to his word, however, he had an inspection made of the Swordfish. The inspector was of a kindred spirit with Mr Webster, so that his report was naturally similar to that of Mr Cooper. Nothing, therefore, was done to the vessel—“nothing being needed”—and the loading went on in spite of the remonstrances of Captain Harry Boyns, who, with all the energy and persistency of his character, continued to annoy, worry, and torment every one who possessed the faintest right or power to interfere in the matter—but all to no purpose; for there are times when neither facts nor fancies, fair words nor foul, fire, fury, folly, nor philosophy, will avail to move some “powers that be!”

In a towering fit of indignation Harry Boyns resolved to throw up his situation; but it occurred to him that this would perhaps be deemed cowardice, so he thought better of it. Then he madly thought of going direct to the President of the Board of Trade and making a solemn protest, backed by a heart-stirring appeal; but gave up that idea on recalling to memory a certain occasion on which a deputation of grave, learned, white-haired gentlemen had gone to London expressly to visit that august functionary of the State, and beseech him, with all the earnestness that the occasion demanded, that he would introduce into Parliament a bill for the better regulation and supervision of ships, and for preventing the possibility of seamen and passengers being seduced on board unseaworthy vessels, carried off to sea, and there murderously drowned in cold blood, as well as in cold water; which deputation received for answer, that “it was not the intention of Government, as at present advised, to introduce a measure for providing more stringent enactments as to the equipments, cargoes, and crews of passenger vessels!”—a reply which was tantamount to saying that if the existing arrangements were inadequate to the ends desired, Government saw no way out of the difficulty, and people must just be left unprotected, and go to sea to be drowned or spared according as chance or the cupidity of shipowners might direct!

This was pretty resolute on the part of Government, considering that above a thousand lives were then, and above two thousand still are, lost annually on the shores of the United Kingdom; a very large number of which—if we may believe the argument of facts and the pretty unanimous voice of the press—are sacrificed because Government refuses to interfere effectively with the murderous tendencies of a certain class of the community!

When Harry Boyns thought of all this he sighed deeply, and made up his mind to remain by the Swordfish, and sink or swim with her. Had he been more of a man of business, perhaps he might have been more successful in finding out how to have prevented the evil he foresaw; but it was the interest of the owner to keep him in the dark as much as possible, for which end Mr Webster kept him out of the ship’s way as much as he could, and when that was impossible, he kept him so busily employed that he remained ignorant of a great deal that was said and done in regard to his vessel.

At length the Swordfish left the Brunswick Dock, six inches deeper than the surveyor had directed, and was towed to the Wellington Dock, where she took in 120 tons of coke, and sank still deeper. Harry also discovered that the equipment of the ship was miserably insufficient for the long voyage she was intended to make. This was too much for him to bear. He went at once to Mr Webster’s office and said that if a deaf ear was to be turned any longer to his remonstrances he would throw up his appointment.

Poor Harry could scarcely have taken a more effective step to insure the turning of the deaf ear to him.

“Oh!” replied Mr Webster, coolly, “if you refuse to take charge of my vessel, Captain Boyns, I will soon find another to do it.”

“I certainly do refuse,” said Harry, preparing to leave the office, “and I think you will find some difficulty in getting any other man to go to sea in such a ship.”

“I differ from you, Captain Boyns. Good afternoon.”

“And if you do, and lives should be lost in consequence,” added Harry, grasping the handle of the door, “I warn you solemnly, that murder will have been committed by you, whatever the law may say on the subject.”

“Good afternoon, Captain Boyns.”

“You’ve got a hard master,” said Harry to Grinder as he passed through the outer office.

The confidential clerk shook his head in a deprecatory way, and smiled.

Next moment Harry Boyns found himself in the street—with nothing to do, and the wide world before him!

Meanwhile, the loading of the Swordfish went on—also the pumping of her. That same day she was visited by a surveyor from the Underwriters’ Association, who found her only five feet clear above water, and still taking in cargo. That gentleman called in another surveyor to a consultation, who agreed with him in pronouncing her overladen. She was represented as such to the local Underwriters’ Association for which the surveyor acted, but as the Swordfish was insured in London and not with them, the Liverpool underwriters did not consider themselves called upon to interfere. Their surveyor, however, visited the vessel again, a few days later, when he found her “only four feet clear,” and declared that, so far from going to Bombay, he should not like to attempt to cross to Dublin in her in anything like rough weather.

Now it must be observed that all these consultations and investigations took place in a quiet way. To the public eye all was “fair and above board.” Few among the thousands who visited the docks knew much about deep loading; still less about adequate equipping. They saw nought but a “noble ship,” well painted, washed, gilded, and varnished, taking merchandise into her insatiable hold, while the “Yo-heave-ho” of the seamen rang out cheerily to the rattling accompaniment of chains and windlass.