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He stumbled over taut hawsers and piles of dunnage, tripped on crazy guy-ropes and insanely planted pegs, and fell again and again upon frozen dumps and mounds of hoarded driftwood.
Both ships continued to heave at their hawsers occasionally, as the ice appeared to slacken a little, by which means they were now and then drawn ahead a few inches at a time, but did not advance more than half a dozen yards in the course of the night. By our nearing several bergs to the northward, the ice appeared to be drifting in that direction, the wind being moderate from the southward.
With the hauling taut and making fast of the fore and aft hawsers, a group of sailors broke away from the flat mass and began tugging at the gangplank, lifting it into position, the boatswain's orders ringing clear.
So soon as early Dawn shone forth, the rosy-fingered, I called to my company, and commanded them that they should themselves climb the ship and loose the hawsers. So they soon embarked and sat upon the benches, and sitting orderly smote the grey sea water with their oars. 'Thence we sailed onward stricken at heart, yet glad as men saved from death, albeit we had lost our dear companions.
The land breeze blew behind her and the surf had not the fury the sea breeze gives by day, but when Terrier plunged into the turmoil Brown watched the tow ropes with anxious eyes. Arcturus rolled and sheered about, putting a horrible strain on the hawsers, and sometimes for a minute or two it looked as if she went astern.
In the baggage car were stored extra chains, hawsers, coupling links, crowbars, patent frogs, and every other device which, in Mattison's estimation, could be used in case of extreme circumstances, and there were chairs for Harvey and his lieutenants. Later Harvey walked up to the engine, where Jawn and his fireman were oiling and polishing. "Everything all right, Donohue?" he asked.
"What a place for a naval station, with its spacious and secure anchorages, abundant water, and facilities for making repairs and obtaining supplies! Why, all the fleets of the globe might assemble here, and never foul spars or come across each other's hawsers! What a site, just in that little bay, for a ship-yard!
Various were the expressions of opinion on board; the midshipmen were sanguine that they would succeed. "My brother Jack has determined to do it, and he will do it," said Tom. "Suppose the hawsers were to carry away?" said Archie. "There are two of them; if one doesn't hold, the other may," answered Desmond. Jack paced the deck; at length the rain passed by.
The strain we constantly had occasion to heave on the hawsers, as springs to force the ships through the ice, was such as perhaps no ships ever before attempted; and by means of Phillips’s invaluable capstan, we often separated floes of such magnitude as must otherwise have baffled every effort.
The tugs is gradually doing away with sailing boats, and in time there won't be many of our kind of craft left; but they are useful, you see, for small places where the steamers don't stop, and for the rivers which run into the Mississippi." The next morning at daybreak the sail was hoisted, the hawsers thrown off from the shore, and the flat made her way up the river.
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