"Pig-Headed" Sailor Men

“Why, he’s mad!” said the second officer to me.

Now I must explain: Apaian Lagoon is a vast atoll completely enclosed on the eastern and southern sides by a low, narrow strip of land, densely covered with coco-palms, and on the northern and western by a continuous chain of tiny islets connected by the reef. On the western side there are two narrow ship passages, both exceedingly dangerous on account of their being studded with numerous coral “mushrooms”—i.e., enormous boulders of coral rock, which, resembling a mushroom in shape, come to within a few feet of the surface of the water. Through these passages, the tide, especially the ebb, rushes with great velocity—six or seven knots at least—and vessels when leaving the lagoon, generally waited till slack water, or the first of the flood, when with the usual strong south-east trades, they could stem the current and avoid the dangerous “mushrooms.” But no shipmaster would ever attempt either of these passages, except in the morning, when the sun was astern, and he could, from aloft, con the ship. After two or three o’clock, the sun would be directly in his face, and render it almost impossible for him to get through without striking.

Here then was the position when Evers, cheerfully smoking a cigar, and smiling all over his handsome face, gave the order to heave up. It was blowing very strongly, the tide was on the ebb, the sun was directly in our faces, and we were to tear through a narrow passage at racehorse speed without being able to see anything.

I ventured to suggest to him that it was a bit late for us to get under way.

“Not a bit of it. Come along with me up on the foreyard, and you’ll see how the George Noble will skip through.”

We certainly did skip, for before the anchor was secured, we were dashing westwards for the passage at eight or nine knots, and Evers kept calling out to the mate to make more sail. By the time we were abreast of the passage, the George Noble had every stitch of her canvas on her, and was fairly “humming” along at nearly thirteen knots over the smooth water, and then when she spun into the narrow passage through which a seven-knot current was tearing, her speed became terrific, and I held my breath. The second mate and boatswain were at the wheel, and the crew were standing by the braces. The silence on board was almost painful, for the terrible roar of the current as it tore along the coral walls of the passage, deadened every sound.

“Starboard a little,” shouted Evers to a sailor stationed in the fore rigging below us, who repeated the order to a man on the rail, who in turn passed the word aft.

“Steady, there, steady!”

I tried in vain to discern anything ahead of us—the blinding, blazing sun prevented my seeing aught but a mad seething swirl of water just beneath our bows, and on each side of us. Evers, however, seemed very confident.

“We’ll be through in another two minutes—” he began, and then came a terrific shock, and both he and I were jerked off the footrope, and toppled over the yard on to the bellying foresail!

We both rolled down on top of the windlass, and landed almost in each others arms, half dazed. I sat down on deck to consider who I was, and what was the matter, and Evers made a wobbly run aft, the ship still ripping along, for we had been checked in our mad career for a second or two only.

In two or three minutes we were outside, and clear of danger, and Evers, now much subdued, brought to under the lee of the reef, and anchored. Then we lowered a boat, and made an examination of the ship for’ard. Nothing was wrong with her above her water-line, but three feet further down her stem was smashed into a pulp, and bits of timber kept coming to the surface every now and then. An hour later we had nine inches of water in the hold, and the consequence of Evers’s pig-headedness was that we had to keep the pumps going day and night, every two hours, till we rigged a windmill, which was kept going till we reached Sydney.

Six months later, the local trader of Apaian wrote to me, and told me that Evers “has improved the passage into the lagoon very much. You ran smack into a big mushroom, standing up right in the middle, and broke it off short, about fifteen feet below the surface. Hope the George Noble will do the same thing next time.”