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Updated: May 27, 2025
This afternoon and the whole of the next day, when the tide suited, we were endeavouring to weigh the ship's anchors; but they were together with the cables so imbedded in the bottom, which must have been a quicksand, that this proved impossible. Had the ship been fitted with Captain Charles Phillips', R.N., capstan, there would have been a better chance of succeeding.
After waiting two or three hours, the first net is hauled on board, when, if it is found that a number of fish have been caught, the whole of the net is hauled in by means of a capstan and the warp to which the nets are fastened. The fish are then shaken out, and the vessel beats up again to the spot from which the net was first shot, and the process is repeated.
"They are all right, I am thankful to say," he observed to me; "they want to thank you and Mr Blyth as soon as you can go below, for coming to their assistance." By this time, the tide having risen, the ship was once more perfectly upright. The capstan palls were shipped, away we tramped round and round, straining every nerve.
There is the creaking of a chain, and the loud tinkle as the check of the capstan falls into the ratchet." "What are you doing?" "I am still, oh so still. It is like death!" The voice faded away into a deep breath as of one sleeping, and the open eyes closed again. By this time the sun had risen, and we were all in the full light of day. Dr.
Pen, who was a brutal man, was going to strike him once, when he fell, unfortunately, against the angle of the capstan, and made a frightful wound in his head. Of course this accident was placed to the account of the fantastic animal.
The Belle Helène had risen from her bed in the mud now and rode free. Our soundings showed us that it would be easy now to break out the anchor and reach the channel, just ahead. So, finding no leak of consequence, and the beloved engines not the worse for wear, Williams went below to get up some power, while Peterson took the wheel and I went forward to the capstan.
At sea, according to the homely old saw, "every tub must stand on its own bottom." "So you come from Bolderhead, do you?" quoth Tom to me, one day when we were lounging together forward of the capstan, and he was mending his pipe. "That's where we live in the summer," I admitted. "Jest summer visitors, are ye?" "Well, my mother has a house there." "Yes.
The capstan was again manned below, and the marines and idlers heaved in the cable to the sound of the drum and fife, as before; although, this time, the tune was "The Girl I Left Behind Me," the tramp of their feet coming in every now and again as a sort of chorus to the music, while on the forecastle above, the boatswain overhauled the catfalls, and got up the up and down tackle, and the gunner's crew rigged out the fish davit with its gear.
This implied that the heavy mass of metal, of some four tons weight, by which we had been moored, was now off the ground, a fact that increased the strain on the cable and messenger, taking a longer and a stronger pull out of those working the capstan, and making the nippers, too, pass a trifle less briskly than before.
This was done under the superintendence of René, man of all work, and with the mechanical intermediary of rollers and capstan, by a small white horse shackled to a lever, and patiently grinding his steady rounds on the sand. His preliminary task achieved, the man, after a few friendly smacks, set the beast free to trot back to his loose pasture: proceeding himself to unship his cargo.
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