Sometimes a buoy is not laid at all, but the yawl goes ahead, hunting the best water, and the steamer follows along in its wake. Often there is a deal of fun and excitement about sounding, especially if it is a glorious summer day, or a blustering night. But in winter the cold and the peril take most of the fun out of it.
A buoy is nothing but a board four or five feet long, with one end turned up; it is a reversed schoolhouse bench, with one of the supports left and the other removed. It is anchored on the shoalest part of the reef by a rope with a heavy stone made fast to the end of it. But for the resistance of the turned-up end of the reversed bench, the current would pull the buoy under water. At night, a paper lantern with a candle in it is fastened on top of the buoy, and this can be seen a mile or more, a little glimmering spark in the waste of blackness.
Nothing delights a cub so much as an opportunity to go out sounding. There is such an air of adventure about it; often there is danger; it is so gaudy and man-of-warlike to sit up in the stern-sheets and steer a swift yawl; there is something fine about the exultant spring of the boat when an experienced old sailor crew throw their souls into the oars; it is lovely to see the white foam stream away from the bows; there is music in the rush of the water; it is deliciously exhilarating, in summer, to go speeding over the breezy expanses of the river when the world of wavelets is dancing in the sun. It is such grandeur, too, to the cub, to get a chance to give an order; for often the pilot will simply say, ‘Let her go about!’ and leave the rest to the cub, who instantly cries, in his sternest tone of command, ‘Ease starboard! Strong on the larboard! Starboard give way! With a will, men!’ The cub enjoys sounding for the further reason that the eyes of the passengers are watching all the yawl’s movements with absorbing interest if the time be daylight; and if it be night he knows that those same wondering eyes are fastened upon the yawl’s lantern as it glides out into the gloom and dims away in the remote distance.
One trip a pretty girl of sixteen spent her time in our pilothouse with her uncle and aunt, every day and all day long. I fell in love with her. So did Mr. Thornburg’s cub, Tom G — — . Tom and I had been bosom friends until this time; but now a coolness began to arise. I told the girl a good many of my river adventures, and made myself out a good deal of a hero; Tom tried to make himself appear to be a hero, too, and succeeded to some extent, but then he always had a way of embroidering. However, virtue is its own reward, so I was a barely perceptible trifle ahead in the contest. About this time something happened which promised handsomely for me: the pilots decided to sound the crossing at the head of 21. This would occur about nine or ten o’clock at night, when the passengers would be still up; it would be Mr. Thornburg’s watch, therefore my chief would have to do the sounding. We had a perfect love of a sounding-boat — long, trim, graceful, and as fleet as a greyhound; her thwarts were cushioned; she carried twelve oarsmen; one of the mates was always sent in her to transmit orders to her crew, for ours was a steamer where no end of ‘style’ was put on.
We tied up at the shore above 21, and got ready. It was a foul night, and the river was so wide, there, that a landsman’s uneducated eyes could discern no opposite shore through such a gloom. The passengers were alert and interested; everything was satisfactory. As I hurried through the engine-room, picturesquely gotten up in storm toggery, I met Tom, and could not forbear delivering myself of a mean speech —
‘Ain’t you glad YOU don’t have to go out sounding?’
Tom was passing on, but he quickly turned, and said —
‘Now just for that, you can go and get the sounding-pole yourself. I was going after it, but I’d see you in Halifax, now, before I’d do it.’
‘Who wants you to get it? I don’t. It’s in the sounding-boat.’
‘It ain’t, either. It’s been new-painted; and it’s been up on the ladies’ cabin guards two days, drying.’
I flew back, and shortly arrived among the crowd of watching and wondering ladies just in time to hear the command:
‘Give way, men!’
I looked over, and there was the gallant sounding-boat booming away, the unprincipled Tom presiding at the tiller, and my chief sitting by him with the sounding-pole which I had been sent on a fool’s errand to fetch. Then that young girl said to me —
‘Oh, how awful to have to go out in that little boat on such a night! Do you think there is any danger?’
I would rather have been stabbed. I went off, full of venom, to help in the pilothouse. By and by the boat’s lantern disappeared, and after an interval a wee spark glimmered upon the face of the water a mile away. Mr. Thornburg blew the whistle, in acknowledgment, backed the steamer out, and made for it. We flew along for a while, then slackened steam and went cautiously gliding toward the spark. Presently Mr. Thornburg exclaimed —
‘Hello, the buoy-lantern’s out!’
He stopped the engines. A moment or two later he said —
‘Why, there it is again!’
So he came ahead on the engines once more, and rang for the leads. Gradually the water shoaled up, and then began to deepen again! Mr. Thornburg muttered —
‘Well, I don’t understand this. I believe that buoy has drifted off the reef. Seems to be a little too far to the left. No matter, it is safest to run over it anyhow.’
So, in that solid world of darkness we went creeping down on the light. Just as our bows were in the act of plowing over it, Mr. Thornburg seized the bell-ropes, rang a startling peal, and exclaimed —
‘My soul, it’s the sounding-boat!’
A sudden chorus of wild alarms burst out far below — a pause — and then the sound of grinding and crashing followed. Mr. Thornburg exclaimed —
‘There! the paddle-wheel has ground the sounding-boat to lucifer matches! Run! See who is killed!’
I was on the main deck in the twinkling of an eye. My chief and the third mate and nearly all the men were safe. They had discovered their danger when it was too late to pull out of the way; then, when the great guards overshadowed them a moment later, they were prepared and knew what to do; at my chiefs order they sprang at the right instant, seized the guard, and were hauled aboard. The next moment the sounding-yawl swept aft to the wheel and was struck and splintered to atoms. Two of the men and the cub Tom, were missing — a fact which spread like wildfire over the boat. The passengers came flocking to the forward gangway, ladies and all, anxious-eyed, white-faced, and talked in awed voices of the dreadful thing. And often and again I heard them say, ‘Poor fellows! poor boy, poor boy!’
By this time the boat’s yawl was manned and away, to search for the missing. Now a faint call was heard, off to the left. The yawl had disappeared in the other direction. Half the people rushed to one side to encourage the swimmer with their shouts; the other half rushed the other way to shriek to the yawl to turn about. By the callings, the swimmer was approaching, but some said the sound showed failing strength. The crowd massed themselves against the boiler-deck railings, leaning over and staring into the gloom; and every faint and fainter cry wrung from them such words as, ‘Ah, poor fellow, poor fellow! is there no way to save him?’
But still the cries held out, and drew nearer, and presently the voice said pluckily —
‘I can make it! Stand by with a rope!’
What a rousing cheer they gave him! The chief mate took his stand in the glare of a torch-basket, a coil of rope in his hand, and his men grouped about him. The next moment the swimmer’s face appeared in the circle of light, and in another one the owner of it was hauled aboard, limp and drenched, while cheer on cheer went up. It was that devil Tom.
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