The Toilers of the Sea (34 page)

IX

SUCCESS ACHIEVED BUT LOST IMMEDIATELY

It was not yet all over.

The immediate need was clearly to reopen the channel closed by the section from the side of the Durande and move the paunch away from the reef. At sea every minute is urgent. There was little wind and barely a ripple on the surface of the water; and it was a very fine evening, holding the promise of a fine night. It was slack tide, but the ebb was beginning to be felt: it was a good time to leave the reef. There would be a falling tide for leaving the Douvres and a rising tide for returning to Guernsey, making it possible to reach St. Sampson by daybreak.

But now an unexpected obstacle presented itself. There had been an oversight in Gilliatt's plans. The engines were free, but the funnel was still held prisoner. The tide, by bringing the paunch nearer to the wreck suspended above it, had reduced the dangers of the descent and the time required for the salvage operation; but this shortening of the distance between the two had left the top of the funnel within the square opening in the hull of the Durande. The funnel was caught, as if between four walls.

The assistance given by the waves had involved this little piece of deceit. It seemed that the sea, compelled to obey, had had an
arrièrepensée.

True, what the flood tide had done the ebb was going to undo. The funnel was rather more than three fathoms in height, and eight feet of this was caught inside the Durande. The tide would have a fall of twelve feet; and the funnel, falling down with the paunch on the ebb tide, would clear the wreck by four feet and would be free to go.

But how long would it be before this happened? It would take six hours, and in six hours it would be almost midnight. How could Gilliatt possibly try to get away at that time of night? How could he trace the passage between the rocks, so inextricable even in daylight, and how could he risk sailing through the surrounding shoals in total darkness?

He would have to wait until the following morning. The loss of these six hours meant the loss of at least twelve.

He could not even hope to speed things up by reopening the channel into the reef. The barrier he had erected would be required at the next high tide.

There was nothing for Gilliatt to do but rest from his labors: the one thing he had not done since he had been on the reef. This enforced rest annoyed him, and made him almost indignant, as if it had been his own fault. He thought to himself: “What would Déruchette think of me if she saw me sitting idly here?”

Perhaps, however, this opportunity to recover his strength was not altogether a bad thing. The paunch was now at his disposal, and he decided to spend the night in her. He climbed up the Great Douvre and brought down his sheepskin, supped on a few limpets and sea chestnuts and, feeling very thirsty, drank the last few mouthfuls of fresh water from his almost empty can. Then he wrapped himself up in the sheepskin, which had a comforting feel, and lay down like a watchdog beside the engines, drew his cap over his eyes, and fell asleep.

He slept soundly. After such labor men sleep well.

X

WARNINGS FROM THE SEA

Suddenly, in the middle of the night, Gilliatt awoke with a start, as if a spring had been released. He opened his eyes. The Douvres, above his head, were illuminated as if by the light from a huge mass of glowing white embers. It was like the reflection of a great fire, covering the whole black face of the rock.

Where was this fire coming from?

It came from the water.

The sea was an extraordinary sight. It looked as if the water was on fire. As far as the eye could reach, within the reef and outside it, the whole sea was aflame. But the flames were not red; they were quite unlike the great living flames of craters and furnaces. There was no sparkle, no heat, no trace of purple, no noise. Trails of bluish light over the sea looked like the folds of a winding-sheet. A wide swathe of pale light trembled on the water. It was not a fire: it was the specter of a fire. It was like the hideous illumination of the interior of a tomb by a flame seen in a dream. It was as if the shadows were lit up.

The night—the great dim, spreading night—seemed to be the fuel feeding this icy fire. It was a strange light created from darkness. Shadow was one element in the composition of this phantom light.

The seamen of the Channel are familiar with these indescribable phosphorescences, so full of warnings for the mariner. Nowhere are they more astonishing than in the Grand V, near Isigny.

In this light things lose their reality. Penetrated by this spectral illumination, they seem to become transparent. Rocks become mere outlines. Anchor cables look like iron bars brought to white heat. Fishermen's nets look like knitted patterns of fire under the water. One half of an oar is made of ebony; the other half, under the water, of silver. Drops of water falling off the oars into the water spangle the sea with stars. Every boat has a comet trailing behind it. The sailors, drenched and luminous, appear like men on fire. Dip your hand into the water, and it comes out gloved in flame—a dead flame, which you do not feel. Your arm becomes a firebrand. You see the forms of creatures under the water bathed in fire. The foam sparkles. The fish are tongues of fire and flashes of lightning darting about in the pallid depths.

It was this light that had passed through Gilliatt's eyelids and wakened him.

His awakening came just in time. The tide had ebbed and had begun to rise again. The Durande's funnel, which had fallen clear of the wreck while Gilliatt had been sleeping, was about to be caught up again in the hole in the vessel's hull, toward which it was slowly returning. It was now only a foot short of the wreck.

The tide would take about half an hour to rise a foot. Gilliatt had thus only half an hour to complete the deliverance of the Durande— a deliverance that was in danger of being frustrated. He stood up sharply. But urgent as the situation was, he could not help standing for a few moments contemplating the phosphorescence and thinking.

Gilliatt was thoroughly familiar with the sea. Whatever her mood, and however many times she had maltreated him, he had long been a companion of hers. That mysterious being whom we know as the Ocean could have nothing in her mind that Gilliatt could not discern. By dint of observation, reflection, and solitude he had become a diviner of the weather—he was what is known in English as weather-wise.

Gilliatt made straight for the top ropes and paid out some cable; then, when the paunch was no longer held by the anchors, he took up the boat hook and, bracing himself against the rocks, pushed the boat some fathoms away from the Durande, near the barrier he had erected. In less than ten minutes the paunch was clear of the stranded carcass of the Durande. There was no longer any danger that the funnel would be caught in a trap. The tide might now rise as fast as it liked.

Yet Gilliatt did not look like a man who was about to leave. He looked again at the phosphorescence, and weighed the anchors; it was not a preparation for departure, but merely in order to anchor the paunch again, still more firmly, near the mouth of the channel. So far he had used only the paunch's two anchors, but had not yet made use of the Durande's small anchor, which it will be remembered he had found among the rocks. He had laid it in a corner of the paunch, ready for any emergency, together with a supply of hawsers and pulleys and its cable, which had large knots in it to prevent it from running too freely. Gilliatt lowered this third anchor, taking care to fasten a warp to the cable with one end tied to the ring of the anchor and the other to the windlass of the paunch. In this way he contrived a kind of triple anchorage, much stronger than with only the two bower anchors. This reflected his lively concern with the situation and a redoubling of precautions. A seaman would have recognized in this operation something akin to an anchorage of refuge, when there is danger from a current that might carry the vessel under the wind.

The phosphorescence, which Gilliatt had been watching carefully, was perhaps a threat, but it had also helped him. Without it he would still have been a prisoner of sleep and at the mercy of the night. It had wakened him, and it gave him light.

A sinister light hung over the reef; but this illumination, threatening as it appeared to Gilliatt, had at any rate the advantage that it had revealed the danger to him and enabled him to act. Whenever he should wish to set sail the paunch, laden with the engines, was free to go.

But now Gilliatt seemed to be thinking less and less of departure. With the paunch safely anchored, he fetched the strongest chain in his store and, fastening it to the nails he had driven into the two Douvres, stretched it across the inner side of the rampart of beams and planking, already protected on the outside by the other chain, so as to fortify it still further. Far from opening up the exit from the channel, he was closing it still more firmly.

The phosphorescence was still giving him light, but it was dying away. The first signs of dawn were now appearing.

Suddenly Gilliatt pricked up his ears.

XI

THE VALUE OF A GOOD EAR

He thought he heard, at an immense distance, a faint, indistinct sound.

At certain times there is a rumbling in the depths of the ocean.

He listened again. The distant sound was repeated. Gilliatt shook his head, like a man who knew what it was.

A few minutes later he was at the other end of the channel in the reef, at the eastern entrance, which was still open, and, with great blows of his hammer, was driving large nails into the granite on either side of the channel mouth, near the Homme rock, just as he had done at the Douvres end.

The crevices in these rocks had already been prepared and fitted with wedges of wood, almost all heart of oak. This part of the reef was much weathered, with many fissures, and Gilliatt was able to drive in even more nails than in the two Douvres.

Suddenly the phosphorescence disappeared, as if it had been blown out, giving place to the dawn, which every moment became brighter.

After driving in the nails Gilliatt dragged along beams, then ropes, and finally chains, and, without pausing for a moment, set about constructing at the mouth of the channel at the Homme, using beams laid horizontally and secured with cables, one of those openwork barriers known as breakwaters that are now a recognized technique.

Anyone who has seen, for example in Rocquaine Bay on Guernsey or at Bourg-d'Ault in France, the effect produced by a few stakes planted among the rocks will understand the power of such simple arrangements. A breakwater is a combination of what is known in France as a groyne and in England as a dike.
¹⁸¹
Breakwaters are the chevaux-de-frise of the fortifications set up against tempests. The only way to fight against the sea is to take advantage of the divisibility of its power.

Meanwhile the sun had risen in perfect purity. The sky was clear, the sea was calm. Gilliatt worked quickly. He, too, was calm, but his haste betrayed some anxiety. He strode from rock to rock, from the barrier to his storeroom and from the storeroom to the barrier, dragging with him now a rider and now a binding strake. The value of his reserve store of timber was now demonstrated. Clearly he had foreseen the eventuality with which he was now dealing.

He used a stout iron bar as a lever for moving the beams.

The work was done so quickly that it was more like a natural growth than a work of construction. Only those who have seen military engineers constructing a bridge can have any idea of Gilliatt's speed.

The east end of the channel was narrower than the west end, only five or six feet across, and this made Gilliatt's task easier. Since the space to be fortified and closed was less, the structure would be more solid and could be simpler. Thus horizontal beams would be sufficient: no vertical members were necessary.

After the first crosspieces of the breakwater were in position, Gilliatt climbed onto it and listened. The distant rumbling was now becoming fuller of meaning.

Gilliatt continued with his work, buttressing it with the Durande's two catheads, bound to the tangle of beams with ropes passing through their three pulley wheels, and securing the whole thing with chains.

The whole structure was little more than a colossal hurdle, with stout beams for the horizontal bars and chains in place of osiers. It seemed interwoven as much as built. Gilliatt fastened numbers of additional ties and added more nails where necessary. Having salvaged plenty of iron bars from the wreck, he had been able to build up a considerable stock of nails.

While working he crunched biscuit from his store. He was thirsty, but had no fresh water left to drink, having drained the can at his supper the night before.

He added another four or five pieces of timber; then climbed up onto the barrier again and listened. The noise on the horizon had ceased. All was quiet.

The sea was calm and beautiful, meriting all the complimentary phrases that people use when they are pleased with her: “a mirror,” “a lake,” “smooth as oil,” “child's play,” “quiet as a lamb.” The deep blue of the sky formed a counterpart to the deep green of the ocean—a sapphire and an emerald that could admire each other, each finding no fault in the other. Not a cloud above, not a trace of foam below. And amid this splendor the April sun was rising in all its magnificence. A finer day could not be imagined.

On the farthest horizon a long file of birds of passage traced a black line against the sky. They were traveling fast, making for land. Their flight had something of the air of an escape.

Gilliatt continued increasing the height of the breakwater. He raised it as high as he could, as high as the curve of the rocks would allow.

Toward noon the sun seemed to him to be hotter than it should be. Midday is the critical hour of the day. Standing on the sturdy framework he had erected, Gilliatt looked out again at the vast expanse of sea.

The sea was not merely calm: it was stagnant. There was not a sail to be seen. The sky, all over, was limpid; but the blue had now turned to white—a white that had a strange look.

On the horizon to the west there was a small unwholesome-looking stain. It remained motionless in the same place, but was growing in size. Near the rocks fringing the reef the waves quivered very gently.

Gilliatt had done well to erect his breakwater. A storm was approaching. The abyss was making up its mind to do battle.