Billy Topsail & Company: A Story for Boys

“No more o’ that for me,” said Billy Topsail, afterwards.

“Nor me,” said Jimmie Grimm.

“You’ll both o’ you take all that comes your way,” Bill o’ Burnt Bay put in, tartly.

It was aboard the First Venture, which Bill o’ Burnt Bay had as master-builder built at Ruddy Cove for himself. She was to be his–she was his–and he loved her from stem to 90 stern. And she was his because Sir Archibald Armstrong, the great St. John’s merchant and ship-owner, had advanced the money to build her in recognition of Skipper Bill’s courageous rescue of Archie Armstrong, Sir Archibald’s only son, in a great blizzard, on the sealing voyage of the year before.2 At any rate, the First Venture was Bill’s; and she was now afloat and finished, rigged to the last strand of rope. To say that Skipper Bill was proud of her does not begin to express the way in which he loved her.

“Now, look you, Billy Topsail, and you, too, Jimmie Grimm!” said he, gravely, one day, beckoning the boys near.

The First Venture was lying at anchor in the harbour, ready for her maiden voyage to St. John’s.

“I’m in need of a man aboard this here craft,” Bill o’ Burnt Bay went on; “an’ as there’s none t’ be had in this harbour I’m thinkin’ of addin’ you two boys up an’ callin’ the answer t’ the sum a man.”

“Wisht you would, Skipper Bill,” said Jimmie.

“Two halves makes a whole,” Bill mused, scratching his head in doubt. “Leastwise, so I was teached.”

“They teach it in school,” said Jimmie.

Billy Topsail grinned delightedly.

“Well,” Bill declared, at last, “I’ll take you, no matter what comes of it, for there’s nothing else I can do.”

It wasn’t quite complimentary; but the boys didn’t mind.

When the First Venture made St. John’s it was still early enough in the spring of the year for small craft to be at sea. When she was ready to depart on the return voyage to Ruddy Cove, the days were days of changeable weather, of wind and snow, of fog and rain, of unseasonable intervals of quiet sunshine. The predictions of the wiseacres were not to be trusted; and, at any rate, every forecast was made with a wag of the head that implied a large mental reservation. At sea it was better to proceed with caution. To be prepared for emergencies–to expect the worst and to be ready for it–was the part of plain common sense. And Skipper Bill o’ Burnt Bay was well aware of this.

The First Venture lay in dock at St. John’s. She was loaded for Ruddy Cove and the ports beyond. Skipper Bill had launched himself as a coastwise skipper–master of the stout First Venture, carrying freight to the northern settlements at a fair rate for all comers. The hold was full to the deck; and the deck itself was cumbered with casks and cases, all lashed fast in anticipation of a rough voyage. It was a miscellaneous cargo: flour, beef, powder and shot, molasses, kerosene, clothing–such necessities, in short, as the various merchants to whom the cargo was consigned could dispose of to the people of the coast, and such simple comforts as the people could afford.

She was a trim and stout little fore-and-aft schooner of fifty tons burthen. The viewers had awarded the government bounty without a quibble. Old John Hulton, the chief of them–a terror to the slipshod master-builders–had frankly said that she was an honest little craft from bowsprit to taffrail. The newspapers had complimented Bill o’ Burnt Bay, her builder, in black and white which could not be disputed. They had even called Skipper Bill “one of the honest master-builders of the outports.” Nor had they forgotten to add the hope that “in the hands of Skipper William, builder and master, the new craft will have many and prosperous voyages.” By this praise, of course, Skipper Bill was made to glow from head to foot with happy gratification.

All the First Venture wanted was a fair wind out.

“She can leg it, sir,” Skipper Bill said to Sir Archibald, running his eyes over the tall, trim spars of the new craft; “an’ once she gets t’ sea she’s got ballast enough t’ stand up to a sousing breeze. With any sort o’ civil weather she ought t’ make Ruddy Cove in five days.”

“I’d not drive her too hard,” said Sir Archibald, who had come down to look at the new schooner for a purpose.

Bill o’ Burnt Bay looked up in amazement. This from the hard-sailing Sir Archibald!

“Not too hard,” Sir Archibald repeated.

Skipper Bill laughed.

“I’m sure,” said Sir Archibald, “that Mrs. William had rather have you come safe than unexpected. Be modest, Skipper Bill, and reef the Venture when she howls for mercy.”

“I’ll bargain t’ reef her, sir,” Bill replied, “when I thinks you would yourself.”

“Oh, come, skipper!” Sir Archibald laughed.

Bill o’ Burnt Bay roared like the lusty sea-dog he was.

“I’ve good reason for wishing you to go cautiously,” said Sir Archibald, gravely.

Bill looked up with interest.

“You’ve settled at Ruddy Cove, skipper?”

“Ay, sir,” Bill answered. “I moved the wife t’ Ruddy Cove when I undertook t’ build the Venture.”

“I’m thinking of sending Archie down to spend the summer,” said Sir Archibald.

Bill o’ Burnt Bay beamed largely and delightedly.

“Do you think,” Sir Archibald went on, with a little grin, “that Mrs. Skipper William would care to take him in?”

“Care?” Skipper Bill exclaimed. “Why, sir, ’twould be as good as takin’ her a stick o’ peppermint.”

“He’ll come aboard this afternoon,” said Sir Archibald.

“He’ll be second mate o’ the Venture,” Bill declared.

“Skipper,” said Sir Archibald, presently, “you’ll be wanting this craft insured, I suppose?”

“Well, no, sir,” Bill drawled.

Sir Archibald frowned. “No trouble for me to take the papers out for you,” said he.

“You see, sir,” Bill explained, “I was allowin’ t’ save that there insurance money.”

“Penny wise and pound foolish,” said Sir Archibald.

“Oh,” drawled Skipper Bill, “I’ll manage t’ get her t’ Ruddy Cove well enough. Anyhow,” he added, “’twon’t be wind nor sea that will wreck my schooner.”

“As you will,” said Sir Archibald, shortly; “the craft’s yours.”

Archie Armstrong came aboard that afternoon–followed by two porters and two trunks. He was Sir Archibald’s son; there was no doubt about that: a fine, hardy lad–robust, straight, agile, alert, with his head carried high; merry, quick-minded, ready-tongued, fearless in wind and high sea. His hair was tawny, his eyes blue and wide and clear, his face broad and good-humoured. He was something of a small dandy, too, as the two porters and the two trunks might have explained. The cut of his coat, the knot in his cravat, the polish on his boots, the set of his knickerbockers, were always matters of deep concern to him. But this did not interfere with his friendship with Billy Topsail, the outport boy. That friendship had been formed in times of peril and hardship, when a boy was a boy, and clothes had had nothing to say in the matter.

Archie bounded up the gangplank, crossed the deck in three leaps and stuck his head into the forecastle.

“Ahoy, Billy Topsail!” he roared.

“Ahoy, yourself!” Billy shouted. “Come below, Archie, an’ take a look at Jimmie Grimm.”

Jimmie Grimm was at once taken into the company of friends.

CHAPTER X

In Which the Cook Smells Smoke, and the “First Venture” In a Gale of Wind Off the Chunks, Comes Into Still Graver Peril, Which Billy Topsail Discovers

Skipper Bill o’ Burnt Bay got the First Venture under way at dawn of the next day. It was blowing a stiff breeze. A fine, fresh wind was romping fair to the northwest, where, far off, Ruddy Cove lay and Mrs. Skipper William waited.

“I ’low,” Skipper Bill mused, as the schooner slipped through the narrows, “that that there insurance wouldn’t o’ done much harm anyhow.”

There was an abrupt change of weather. It came without warning; and there was no hint of apology to the skipper of the First Venture. When the schooner was still to the s’uth’ard of the dangerous Chunks, but approaching them, she was beating laboriously into a violent and capricious head wind. Bill o’ Burnt Bay, giving heed to Sir Archibald’s injunction, kept her well off the group of barren islands. They were mere rocks, scattered widely. Some of them showed their forbidding heads to passing craft; others were submerged, as though lying in wait. It would be well to sight them, he knew, that he might better lay his course; but he was bound that no lurking rock should “pick up” his ship.

“Somehow or other,” he thought, “I wisht I had took out that there insurance.”

At dusk it began to snow. What with this thick, blinding cloud driving past, shrouding the face of the sea, and what with the tumultuous waves breaking over her, and what with the roaring gale drowning her lee rail, the First Venture was having a rough time of it. Skipper Bill, with his hands on the wheel, had the very satisfactory impression, for which he is not to be blamed, that he was “a man.” But when, at last, the First Venture began to howl for mercy in no uncertain way, he did not hesitate to waive the wild joy of “driving” for the satisfaction of keeping his spars in the sockets.

“Better call the hands, Tom!” he shouted to the first hand. “We’ll reef her.”

Tom put his head into the forecastle. The fire in the little round stove was roaring lustily; and the swinging lamp filled the narrow place with warm light.

“Out with you, lads!” Tom cried. “All hands on deck t’ reef the mains’l!”

Up they tumbled; and up tumbled Archie Armstrong, and up tumbled Jimmie Grimm, and up tumbled Billy Topsail.

“Blowin’ some,” thought Archie. “Great sailin’ breeze. What’s he reefin’ for?”

The great sail was obstinate. Ease the schooner as Skipper Bill would, it was still hard for his crew of two men, three lads and a cook to grasp and confine the canvas. Meantime, the schooner lurched along, tossing her head, digging her nose into the frothy waves. A cask on the after deck broke its lashings, pursued a mad and devastating career fore and aft, and at last went spinning into the sea. Skipper Bill devoutly hoped that nothing else would get loose above or below. He cast an apprehensive glance into the darkening cloud of snow ahead. There was no promise to be descried. And to leeward the first islands of the Chunks, which had been sighted an hour ago, had disappeared in the night.

“Lively with that mains’l, lads!” Skipper Bill shouted, lifting his voice above the wind. “We’ll reef the fores’l!”

The crew had been intent upon the task in hand. Not a man had yet smelled smoke. And they continued to wrestle with the obstinate sail, each wishing, heartily enough, to get the dirty-weather job well done, and to return to the comfort of the forecastle. It was the cook who first paused to sniff–to sniff again–and to fancy he smelled smoke. But a gust of wind at that moment bellied his fold of the sail, and he forgot the dawning suspicion in an immediate tussle to reduce the disordered canvas. A few minutes more of desperate work and the mainsail was securely reefed; but these were supremely momentous intervals, during which the fate of the First Venture was determined.

“All stowed, sir!” Archie Armstrong shouted to the skipper.

“Get at that fores’l, then!” was the order.

With the customary, “Ay, ay, sir!” shouted cheerily, in the manner of good men and willing lads, the crew ran forward.

Skipper Bill remembers that the cook tripped and went sprawling into the lee scupper; and that he scrambled out of the water with a laugh.

It was the last laugh aboard the First Venture; for the condition of the schooner was then instantly discovered.

“Fire!” screamed Billy Topsail.

The First Venture was all ablaze forward.

CHAPTER XI

In Which the “First Venture” All Ablaze Forward, Is Headed For the Rocks and Breakers of the Chunks, While Bill o’ Burnt Bay and His Crew Wait for the Explosion of the Powder in Her Hold. In Which, Also, a Rope Is Put to Good Use

“Fire!”

A cloud of smoke broke from the forecastle and was swept off by the wind. A tongue of red flame flashed upward and expired. Skipper Bill did not need the cries of terror and warning to inform him. The First Venture was afire! And she was not only afire; she was off the Chunks in a gale of wind and snow.

“Aft, here, one o’ you!”

When Billy Topsail took the wheel, the skipper plunged into the forecastle. It was a desperate intention. He was back in a moment, singed and gasping. But in that interval he had made out that the forecastle stove, in some violent lurch of the schooner, had broken loose, and had been bandied about, distributing red coals in every part. He had made out, moreover, that the situation of the schooner was infinitely perilous, if not, indeed, quite beyond hope. The forecastle was all ablaze. In five minutes it would be a furnace.

“We’re lost!” Jimmie Grimm cried, staring at the frothy waves running past.

“Not yet,” Archie grimly replied.

They were all of heart and strength and ingenuity; and they worked with all their might. But the buckets of water, and the great seas, which Skipper Bill, in desperation, deliberately shipped, made little impression. It was soon evident that the little First Venture was doomed. Meantime, the skipper had brought her before the wind, and she was now flying towards the inhospitable Chunks. The skipper was less concerned for his schooner than for the lives of his crew. The ship was already lost; the crew–well, how could the crew survive the rocks and gigantic breakers of the Chunks?

It was the only hope. No small boat could for a moment live in the sea that was running. The schooner must be beached on the Chunks. There was no other refuge. But how beach her? It was a dark night, with the snow flying thick. Was it possible to sight a black, low-lying rock? There was nothing for it but to drive with the wind in the hope of striking. There were many islands; she might strike one. But would it really be an island, whereon a man might crawl out of reach of the sea? or would it be a rock swept by the breakers? Chance would determine that. Skipper Bill was powerless.

But would she make the Chunks before she was ablaze from stem to stern? Again, the skipper was powerless; he could do no more than give her all the wind that blew.

So he ordered the reefs shaken out–and waited.

“Tom,” said the skipper, presently, to the first hand, “was it you stowed the cargo?”

“Yes, sir.”

There was a pause. Archie Armstrong and Jimmie Grimm, aft near the wheel, wondered why the skipper had put the question.

“An’ where,” the skipper asked, quietly, “did you put the powder?”

“For’ard, sir.”

“How far for’ard?”

“Fair up against the forecastle bulkhead!”

The appalling significance of this was plain to the crew. The bulkhead was a thin partition dividing the forecastle from the hold.

“Archie,” Skipper Bill drawled, “you better loose the stays’l sheet. She ought t’ do better than this.” He paused. “Fair against the forecastle bulkhead?” he continued. “Tom, you better get the hatch off, an’ see what you’re able t’ do about gettin’ them six kegs o’ powder out. No–bide here!” he added. “Take the wheel again, Billy. Get that hatch off, some o’ you.”

It was the skipper himself who dropped into the hold. The cargo was packed tight. Heavy barrels of flour, puncheons of molasses, casks of pork and beef, lay between the skipper and the powder. He crawled forward, wriggling in the narrow space between the freight and the deck. No fire had as yet entered the hold; but the place was full of stifling smoke. It was apparent that the removal of the powder would be the labour of hours; and there were no hours left for labour. The skipper could stand the smoke no longer. He retreated towards the hatch. How long it would be before the fire communicated itself to the cargo–how long it would be before the explosion of six kegs of powder would scatter the wreck of the First Venture upon the surface of the sea–no man could tell. But the end was inevitable.

Anxious questions greeted the skipper when again he stood upon the wind-swept deck.

“Close the hatch,” said he.

“No chance, sir?” Archie asked.

“No, b’y.”

The forecastle was already closed. There was no gleam of fire anywhere to be seen. The bitter wind savoured of smoke; nothing else betrayed the schooner’s peril.

“Now, get you all back aft!” was the skipper’s command. “Keep her head as it points.”

When the crew had crept away to the place remotest from the danger point, Bill o’ Burnt Bay went forward to keep a lookout for the rocks and breakers. The burning forecastle was beneath his feet; he could hear the crackling of the fire; and the smoke, rising now more voluminously, troubled his nostrils and throat. It was pitch dark ahead. There was no blacker shadow of land, no white flash of water, to give him hope. It seemed as though an unbroken expanse of sea lay before the labouring First Venture. But the skipper knew to the contrary; somewhere in the night into which he stared–somewhere near, and, momentarily, drawing nearer–lay the Chunks. He wondered if the First Venture would strike before the explosion occurred. It must be soon, he knew. The possibility of being off the course did not trouble him.

Soon the seams of the deck began to open. Smoke poured out in thickening clouds. Points of light, fast changing to lines of flame, warned the skipper that he must retreat. It was not, however, until heat and smoke and the certain prospect of collapse compelled him, that he joined the crew. He was not a spectacular hero; when common sense dictated return, he obeyed without delay, and without maudlin complaint. Without a word he took the wheel from Billy Topsail’s hands, and without a word he kept the schooner on her course. There was no need of command or advice; men and boys knew their situation and their duty.

“It can’t be long,” said the cook.

There was now a glow of red light above the forecastle. The fire was about to break through. It was not hard to surmise that the collapse of the bulkhead was imminent. 108

“No, sir!” the fidgety cook repeated. “It can’t be long, now.”

It seemed long. Minute after minute passed, each of incredible length, while the First Venture staggered forward, wildly pitching through the seas. At last, the flames broke out of the forecastle and illuminated the deck.

“Not long, now!” the cook whimpered. “It can’t be!”

Nor was it. The First Venture struck. She was upon the rocks before the skipper was well aware that breakers lay ahead. Her bow fell, struck, was lifted, fell again, and fastened itself. The next wave flung the schooner broadside. The third completed the turn. She lay with her head pointing into the wind. Her stern, where the crew stood waiting for the end, rose and fell on the verge of a great breaker. Beyond was a broken cliff, rising to unwashed heights, which the snow had begun to whiten. The bow was lifted clear of the waves; the stern was awash. A space of white water lay between the schooner and the shore.

Bill o’ Burnt Bay let go his grip on the wheel. There was but one thing to do. Many a skipper had done it before; but never before had there been such desperate need of haste. The fire still burned lustily; and the forecastle was high out of the water.

“If I can’t do it,” the skipper shouted, “it’s the first hand’s turn next.”

He had fastened the end of a coil of rope about his waist. Now he stood swaying on the taffrail. By the light of the fire–uncertain and dull–he must act. He leaped a moment after the next wave had slipped under the stern–when, in the current, he should reach the rocks just after the wave had broken. The crew waited a long time. Many a glance was cast forward; it seemed to them all, such headway had the fire made, that the six kegs of powder must explode the very next instant. No sign came from the skipper; and no sight of him could be caught. They paid out the rope–and waited. The rope was for a long time loose in their hands.

“He’s landed!” cried Jimmie Grimm.

The rope was hauled taut. Upon the rocks, out of reach of the sea, the figure of the skipper could be seen.

“One at a time!” Skipper Bill shouted.

And one at a time they went–decently and in order, like true Newfoundland sailors, Tom Rook, the first hand, the last of all. When they were all ashore, they scrambled like mad up the cliff; and they were no more than out of danger when the First Venture was blown to atoms. There was a flash, a deafening roar–and darkness; broken only by the spluttering splinters of the little craft.

That night, from Heart’s Harbour, the folk observed a ship afire, running in towards the Chunks. To the report they sent immediately to St. John’s–there happens fortunately to be a government telegraph station at Heart’s Harbour–they added, later, that she had blown up. But from St. John’s the salvage-tug Hurricane was dispatched into the stormy sea in search of the survivors; and on the second day following she picked up Skipper Bill o’ Burnt Bay and his crew.

Next day they were in St. John’s.

“Wisht I’d took your advice about the insurance, sir,” broken-hearted Bill o’ Burnt Bay said to Sir Archibald.

Sir Archibald laughed. “I took it for you,” said he.

“What?” Skipper Bill exploded.

“I insured the First Venture on my own responsibility,” Sir Archibald replied. “You shall build the Second Venture at Ruddy Cove next winter.”

Archie Armstrong and Bill o’ Burnt Bay, with the lads and men of the lost First Venture, went back to Ruddy Cove by rail and the mail-boat.

CHAPTER XII

In Which Old David Grey, Once of the Hudson Bay Company, Begins the Tale of How Donald McLeod, the Factor at Fort Refuge, Scorned a Compromise With His Honour, Though His Arms Were Pinioned Behind Him and a Dozen Tomahawks Were Flourished About His Head.

Archie Armstrong was presently established in a white little room in the beaming Aunt “Bill’s” little white cottage at Ruddy Cove. His two trunks–two new trunks, now–were there established with him, of course; and they contained a new outfit of caps, shoes, boots, sweaters, coats, gloves, and what not, suited to every circumstance and all sorts of weather. Then began for Archie, Jimmie and Billy–with Bagg, of the London gutters, sometimes included–hearty times ashore and afloat. It was Bagg, indeed, who proposed the cruise to Birds’ Nest Islands.

“I said I wouldn’t go t’ Birds’ Nest Islands,” said Billy Topsail, “an’ I won’t.”

“Ah, come on, Billy,” Archie pleaded.

“I said I wouldn’t,” Billy repeated, obstinately, “an’ I won’t.”

“That ain’t nothink,” Bagg argued.

“Anyhow,” said Billy, “I won’t, for I got my reasons.”3

David Grey, a bent old fellow, who was now long “past his labour,” as they say in Newfoundland, sat within hearing. Boy and man he had been in the service of the Hudson Bay Company, as hunter, clerk, trader, explorer, factor; and here, on the coast where he had been born, he had settled down to spend the rest of his days. He was not an ignorant man, but, on the contrary, an intelligent one, educated by service, wide evening study of books, and hard experience in the great wildernesses of the Canadian Northwest, begun, long ago, when he was a lad.

“You make me think of Donald McLeod,” said he.

The boys drew near.

“It was long ago,” David went on. “Long, long ago,” the old man repeated. “It was ’way back in the first half of the last century, for I was little more than a boy then. McLeod was factor at Fort Refuge, a remote post, situated three hundred miles or more to the northeast of Lake Superior, but now abandoned. And a successful, fair-dealing trader he was, but so stern and taciturn as to keep both his helpers and his half-civilized customers in awe of him. It was deep in the wilderness–not the wilderness as you boys know it, where a man might wander night and day without fear of wild beast or savage, but a vast, unexplored place, with dangers lurking everywhere.

“‘Grey,’ he said to me when I reported for duty, fresh from headquarters, ‘if you do your duty by me, I’ll do mine by you.’