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Updated: May 22, 2025
A wooden ship was never quite dry, in any weather, for the upper-deck planks, and the timbers of her topsides, could never be so strictly caulked that no water could leak in. The sea-water splashed in through the scuppers and through the ports, or leaked in, a little at a time, through the seams.
Her hull showed now and again on the seas, and after drifting down toward her for about an hour, the light grew strong enough to make her out plainly. She was a large ship, English built, with a turtle-backed stern, painted white on the tumble-home of the quarter. Her hull was black, and the foam showed in long white lines of streamers as it was blown across her topsides.
Before this latter was well under way they noticed a round hole burnt deeply into the mast, of about four inches diameter. Next, the topsides caught fire, and they had barely saved their craft, letting their masts burn to do so. "Was it a bright, sunshiny day?" asked Metcalf. "Sure. Four days ago. He was heading about sou'west, and going slow." "Anything happen to your eyesight?" "Say yes.
The under-water shape of her is different, her topsides have scarcely any tumble-home, and she has not nearly so much sheer as usual. Also I see that you have given her a very much deeper keel than usual. That ought to be of service in helping her to hang to windward." "So 'twill, boy; so 'twill," agreed Radlett.
Oh, the lovely Nannie O, The able Nannie O, The Nannie O a-drivin' through the gale. They were lying there, tied to the docks. They were all dreams, so long and clean, with the beautiful sheer fore and aft, and the overhang of the racers they were meant to be the gold run, with the grain of the varnished oak rails shining above the night-black of their topsides, and varnished spars.
"It's liver; I'll take a dose of salts in the morning." Jimmy Charters looked at him in silence for a moment. "I don't know what the particular worry is at the moment, old man," he said at length, "but don't let go. I'm no sky pilot, but I guess that somewhere up topsides there's a Big Controller Who understands. . . . Only at times the pattern is a bit hard to follow. . . ." Vane laughed hardly.
Our casualties amounted to two killed and five wounded, one of them seriously; while the top of the aftermost of our midship pair of funnels had been blown away, the rail of the navigating bridge smashed and doubled up in a most astonishing way, the pilot-house roof torn off, our topsides pierced in no less than five places, and a very pretty general average made of my cabin, in which a shell had evidently burst.
Though, of course, we had washed out the bilges in New Zealand, the constant stream of water which leaked in from the topsides had carried much coal-dust into them. This, mixed with the lubricating oil washed down from the engines, had cemented into buns and balls which found their way down and choked both hand and engine pump suctions.
And when she tried to head up into it again, one comber bigger than its fellows reared up and slapped a barrel of water inboard. The next wave swamped her. Sunk to the clamps, Stella held fast to the topsides, crouching on her knees, immersed to the hips in water that struck a chill through her flesh. She had the wit to remember and act upon Jack Fyfe's coaching, namely, to sit tight and hang on.
We sailed from Port Essington on the 19th of June, and found a very heavy confused sea running outside, which made the topsides leak so much that we were obliged to have recourse to the pump every hour. On the second day we made the south end of the Arrou Islands, the latitude of which agrees with the position assigned to it in the Admiralty Chart.
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