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Updated: June 15, 2025
But perhaps it would be wrong to risk seamen's lives by exposure in open boats to 'insolation, showers, and surf. From sunrise the sea had changed its Harmatan-grey for a dull, muddy, dirty green; and the leadsman, who is now too civilised to 'sing out' in the good old style, calmly announced that the channel was shallowing.
Dere was a fire-bar made fast to the leg of each for sinker, an' dem was my dead loss-a too. I don' get paid for fire-bars given to gastados " His English failed him. He shrugged his shoulders, and said "Sabbey?" "Sabbey plenty," said Nilssen. "Just get me a leadsman to work, Captain. If you're in a hurry, I'll skim the banks as close as I dare."
He would have been remarkable anywhere for personal activity, for courage, readiness, hardihood, and all those qualities which render a man useful in the business to which he properly belonged; but he could hardly be termed a skilful leadsman, knew little of the finesse of his calling, and was wanting in that in-and-in breeding which converts habit into an instinct, and causes the thorough seaman to do the right thing, blow high or blow low, in the right way, and at the right moment.
Roger obeyed, and a leadsman was soon perched in the chains to windward, busy with his sounding-line to ascertain the depth of water in which they were then sailing, and to give timely warning if the water should begin to shoal dangerously. "Seven fathoms now, sir!" reported Hearst, the leadsman. "Very well," answered Cavendish; "we are safe as yet," turning to Leigh.
The lead was attached to a line and, as the schooner forged slowly ahead, close-hauled, the youth swung the lead in ever-widening semicircles. "Let your pigeon fly!" cried Pete, and the lead swung far ahead and fell with a sullen plop into the dark blue water. The line ran out until it suddenly slackened just under the leadsman. He fingered a mark. "Forty fathoms!" he called.
We listened with eager ears for the final order before sailing, "All hands on the cat falls," and just before noon we heard it. In ready response the men came tumbling up, and in a jiffy the anchor was pulled up as if it weighed five hundred, instead of five thousand pounds. The leadsman stood on his little platform and sang out, as he heaved the lead, the number of fathoms.
The admiral had warned Mr Ball that his little vessel would probably be sunk, and promised to keep a boat ready to save him and his crew should she go down; but undaunted by the danger, he stood on amid a perfect shower of shot and shell, sounding as he went, till the line was cut from the leadsman's hand by a shot from the batteries; but another leadsman immediately took his place, and the Circassia, without a man killed, though frequently hulled, steamed out of harm's way.
"And you?" she said awkwardly, raising her soft eyes. "Oh, if you are all going off in the boats, by Jove, I think I'll stick to the ship!" he returned, with a frankness that would have been rude but for its utter abstraction. Miss Keene was silent. The ship moved gently onward. The monotonous cry of the leadsman in the chains was the only sound audible.
But when the fool who played the leadsman approached the balcony, he said a few words with a provincial accent, intended to cast ridicule on the leadsman, who was born in one of the provinces. It was a silly thing to do, for every man speaks the dialect which his mother has taught him; and it is nothing at all to be ashamed of.
The wind was blowing dead on for the opening in the reef, and the old whaleman came along breasting the swell with her bluff bows, and entered the lagoon. There was no leadsman in her chains. She just came in as if she knew all the soundings by heart as probably she did for these whalemen know every hole and corner in the Pacific.
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