The Toilers of the Sea (33 page)

VI

GILLIATT GETS THE PAUNCH INTO POSITION

The salvage of the Durande's engines that Gilliatt had planned was, as we have already said, like the escape of a prisoner; and it is well known what endless patience is required for an escape. It is well known also what industry is required. The industry can sometimes be miraculous; the patience can amount to a mortal agony. A prisoner like Thomas, for example, confined on Mont Saint-Michel, contrived to conceal half his prison wall in his straw mattress. Another, at Tulle, in 1820, cut off a quantity of lead from the roof that served as an exercise yard— where he got a knife from we do not know—and melted down the lead—how he made a fire we do not know—and then cast it in a mold—which we do know was made of breadcrumbs—to make a key enabling him to open a lock of which he had seen no more than the keyhole. Gilliatt had extraordinary skills of this kind. He would have scaled Boisrosé's cliff and climbed down again. He was the Trenck of a wreck and the Latude
¹⁷⁹
of a piece of machinery.

The sea, his jailer, was watching him.

But however unpleasant and uncomfortable the rain had been, it had brought him one benefit. He had been able to top up his supply of fresh water; but his thirst was insatiable, and he emptied his can almost as fast as he filled it.

One day—the last day in April, or it may have been the first of May—all his preparations were complete. The floor of the engine room was framed between the eight cables from the hoists, four on one side and four on the other. The sixteen openings in the deck and under the hull through which the cables passed had been linked with one another by sawing. The planking had been cut with the saw, the timbers with the ax, the ironwork with the file, the sheathing with the chisel. The part of the keel immediately under the engines was cut away square and was ready to slip out along with the engines, supporting them. All this huge dangling mass depended on a single chain, which itself awaited only a cut with the file. At this stage of completion, so near the end of an operation, it is wise to act quickly.

The tide was at ebb—the right time to go ahead with Gilliatt's plan.

He had managed to dismantle the axle of the paddle wheels, which might have hindered and checked the lowering of the engines, and had lashed this heavy item vertically within the engine room.

It was time to finish the operation. Gilliatt, as we have said, was not tired—was determined not to be tired—but his tools were worn out. The forge was gradually becoming unusable.

The stone that served as an anvil was split. The bellows were no longer working properly. Since they were actuated by seawater, deposits of salt were forming on the joints and interfering with their operation.

Gilliatt went to the creek by the Homme rock and inspected the paunch. Satisfied that everything was in good shape, particularly the four rings to port and starboard, he hoisted the anchor and rowed back to the two Douvres.

The gap between the two rocks was wide enough to admit the paunch, and there was enough depth. Gilliatt had seen on the first day that he would be able to bring the paunch into position there under the Durande.

It was, however, a very awkward maneuver, calling for the precision of a jeweler; and running the boat into the reef was rendered all the more delicate by the necessity, for the purpose of Gilliatt's plan, of going in stern first, with the rudder leading, so that the mast and rigging of the paunch remained clear of the wreck, toward the mouth of the inlet.

These complications made the operation a difficult one for Gilliatt. It was not like entering the creek at the Homme, where only a touch on the tiller was required: here it was necessary for him to push, to haul, to row, and to take soundings, all at the same time. It took fully a quarter of an hour, but at last he succeeded.

In fifteen or twenty minutes the paunch was moored under the Durande; firmly held by its two anchors, it was almost wedged in. The larger of the two was placed so as to hold against the strongest wind to be feared, the west wind. Then, with the help of a lever and the capstan, Gilliatt lowered into the paunch the two crates containing the dismantled paddle wheels, the slings for which were ready. The crates would then serve as ballast.

Having disposed of the two crates, Gilliatt fastened the sling of the controlling tackle gear, which was intended to put a check on the hoists, to the hook on the capstan chain.

For what Gilliatt had in mind, the defects of the paunch became qualities. It had no deck, and the cargo would thus be lower down, resting on the bottom. Its mast stood well forward—perhaps too far forward—so that there would be plenty of room for the cargo; and since the mast was clear of the wreck, it would not hinder the boat's exit. And the tubby shape of the paunch was all to the good: no craft is so stable or holds the sea so well as a tub.

Suddenly Gilliatt noticed that the sea was rising. He looked to see what direction the wind was coming from.

VII

SUDDEN DANGER

There was little wind, but what wind there was came from the west. It is a disagreeable habit that the wind tends to have at the equinox.

The rising tide behaves differently in the Douvres reef according to the wind that is blowing. Depending on the squall that drives it, the sea enters the corridor between the two rocks either from the east or from the west. If it comes in from the east it is gentle and benevolent. If it comes from the west it is a raging fury. This is because the east wind, blowing off the land, has little force, while the west wind, traversing the Atlantic, carries with it all the force of that immensity. Even a seemingly light wind coming from the west is cause for alarm. It rolls in great billows from that boundless expanse and drives too heavy a sea at the same time into the narrow passage.

Water surging into a narrow passage is always dangerous. Water is like a crowd; a multitude is like a liquid; when the quantity that can get in is less than the quantity that wants in, the crowd is crushed and the water is convulsed. Whenever the west wind—even the lightest breeze—is blowing, the Douvres are exposed twice a day to this assault. The sea rises, the waves press forward, the rocks resist, the channel between them offers only a restricted passage, the water, driven violently forward, rages and roars, and a frenzied swell beats against the walls of the channel. And so when there is the least breath of wind from the west the Douvres offer an unusual sight: outside, on the open sea, there is calm, while within the reef there is a storm. This local, circumscribed tumult cannot be called a tempest: it is merely a rebellion by the waves, though a terrifying one. The north and south winds, on the other hand, blow across the reef and stir up only a little surf within the channel. The entrance from the east, it will be remembered, is beside the Homme rock; the formidable western entrance is at the opposite end, between the two Douvres.

At this western entrance was Gilliatt, with the stranded Durande and the paunch moored beneath it. A catastrophe seemed imminent and inevitable. There was just sufficient wind—not much, but enough—to bring it about. Within a few hours the swelling of the rising tide would pour in full force into the channel between the two Douvres. The first waves were already breaking. This swell, a tidal wave from the whole of the Atlantic, would have the full force of the sea behind it. It was not a storm; the sea was not angry: there was merely a single sovereign wave containing within it a driving force that, starting from America and making for Europe, had two thousand leagues of thrust. This wave, a gigantic bar reaching across the ocean, would encounter the gap in the reef and crash against the two Douvres, those watchtowers at the entrance, buttresses of the channel; then, swollen by the tide, swollen by the obstacle, repulsed by the rock, driven hard by the wind, it would do violence to the reef and would penetrate, with all the torsions resulting from the clash with the obstacle and the frenzies of the obstructed wave, between the two walls; it would find the paunch and the Durande and would destroy them.

What was needed was a shield to protect them against this eventuality. Gilliatt had one. It was necessary to prevent the tide from bursting straight in, to ensure that it did not strike with full force while allowing it to rise, to bar its passage without refusing it entry, to resist it and give way to it, to avoid the compression of the wave in the narrow channel that was the great danger, to replace irruption by insertion, to strip the waves of their rage and brutality, to tame this fury into gentleness. The obstacle that irritated had to be replaced by the obstacle that calmed.

Gilliatt, displaying the agility he possessed that was stronger than strength, performing feats worthy of a chamois in the mountains or a sapajou in the forests, taking dizzy and unsteady strides between the least projections on the reef, jumping into the water and emerging again, swimming in the eddies, clambering up the rock with a rope between his teeth and a hammer in his hand, untied the cable that held the forward part of the Durande's side hanging against the base of the Little Douvre, used ends of rope to make, as it were, hinges tying the panel to the long nails he had driven into the granite, and turned it on the hinges to form a kind of sluice gate, presenting it sideways, as one does a rudder, to the waves, which drove one end against the Great Douvre, while the rope hinges held it fast to the Little Douvre. He then used the nails he had driven into the Great Douvre to fasten that end in the same way as the other, and made this great sheet of timber fast to the two pillars at the entrance to the channel, drawing a chain across it, like a sword belt on a cuirass; and in less than an hour this barrier stood guard against the tide, and the passage into the reef was closed as if by a gate.

This substantial structure, a heavy mass of beams and planking that would have been a raft if laid horizontally and, vertically, was a wall, had been handled by Gilliatt with all the dexterity of a conjuror. It could almost be said that he had performed his trick before the rising tide had had time to notice.

It was one of those cases in which Jean Bart
¹⁸⁰
would have used the words he used to address to the sea each time he escaped shipwreck: “Cheated you, Englishman!” It is well known that when Jean Bart wanted to insult the ocean he called it the “Englishman.”

Having barred the entrance to the channel, Gilliatt's thoughts turned to his boat. He slackened the anchor cables sufficiently to allow it to rise with the tide—what old sailors used to call anchoring with bearings. In all of this Gilliatt had not been taken unawares: he had foreseen what might be required. A seaman would have known this from the two pulleys of the top ropes cut into the shape of snatch blocks and fixed to the stern of the boat, on which ran two ropes tied to the rings of the anchors.

The tide had now risen to half-flood—a time when, even in calm weather, the force of the waves may be considerable. What Gilliatt had planned for now happened. The waves hurled themselves against the barrier, encountered it, swelled up, and then passed underneath it. Outside the barrier was a heavy swell; within it was a gentle infiltration. Gilliatt had devised what might be called the Caudine Forks of the sea. The tide had been vanquished.

VIII

AN ACHIEVEMENT, BUT NOT THE END OF THE STORY

The dread moment had arrived. The problem now was to get the engines into the paunch. Gilliatt thought briefly, holding his left elbow in his right hand and his forehead in his left. Then he climbed onto the wreck, part of which—the engines—was to be removed and part—the hull—to be left. He cut the four slings that fastened the four chains of the funnel to the port and starboard sides. The slings were only of rope, so that he had no difficulty in severing them with his knife; and they now hung free beside the funnel.

From the wreck he climbed to the tackle he had constructed, stamped his foot on the beams, inspected the pulley blocks, looked at the pulleys, touched the cables, examined the splices, made sure that the untarred rope was not soaked through, checked that nothing was missing and nothing was giving way; then he jumped from the binding strakes onto the deck and took up his position near the capstan, on the part of the Durande that was to remain wedged between the Douvres. This was his workstation.

Grave, with no more emotion than was required for his task, he had one last glance at his tackle; then he took a file and set about sawing through the chain that held the whole thing suspended. The grating of the file could be heard above the roaring of the sea. The chain of the capstan, which was attached to the main tackle, was within reach of Gilliatt's hand.

Suddenly there was a crack. The link of the chain, which had been more than half cut through by the file, had given way, and the whole apparatus began to swing about. Gilliatt had only just time to catch hold of the main tackle.

The broken chain whipped against the rock, the eight cables took the strain, and the whole mass that had been sawn and cut free tore itself away from the wreck, the belly of the Durande opened, and the iron flooring of the engine house, weighing heavily on the cables, appeared under the keel.

If Gilliatt had not so promptly grasped the main tackle, the whole load must have fallen. But his powerful hand was there, and it was lowered steadily.

When Jean Bart's brother Pieter Bart, that powerful and sagacious drunkard, that poor fisherman of Dunkirk who spoke familiarly to the Grand Admiral of France, saved the galley
Langeron,
in distress in Ambleteuse Bay, when in order to draw that heavy floating mass through the breakers in the raging bay he reefed the mainsail with marine reeds, with the idea that the reeds would break off of themselves and unfurl the sail to the wind, he trusted in the breaking of the reeds as Gilliatt trusted in the breaking of the chain, showing the same extraordinary boldness and achieving the same surprising success.

The main tackle, controlled by Gilliatt, held firm and worked admirably. Its function, it will be remembered, was to take the shock of the separate forces, now combined into one and reduced to a single operation. It was rather like the bridle of a bowline, except that instead of trimming a sail it was keeping a mechanism in balance.

Gilliatt, standing with his hand on the capstan, was, as it were, keeping his hand on the pulse of the whole operation.

The plan he had devised had proved a brilliant success, and a remarkable coincidence of forces had been achieved. As the Durande's engines, cut free in a single block, descended toward the paunch, the paunch rose toward the engines. The wreck and the boat that had come to salvage it, aiding each other as they moved in opposite directions and, meeting each other halfway, spared themselves half the labor.

The rising tide, swelling noiselessly between the two Douvres, raised the paunch, bringing it closer to the Durande. The waves were not only vanquished: they were tamed. The ocean had become part of the mechanism.

The swell lifted the boat smoothly and gently, taking as much care as if it had been made of porcelain.

Gilliatt combined and kept in proportion the two parts of the operation, the work of the water and the working of his apparatus, and, standing motionless at the capstan, like a redoubtable statue obeyed by all the various movements at the same time, regulated the slowness of the descent to match the slowness of the ascent.

There was no sudden shock from the waves, no jerkiness in the working of the hoists. It was a strange collaboration of all the natural forces, now submitting to Gilliatt's control. On one side was gravity, bringing the engines down; on the other the tide, bringing the boat up. The attraction of the heavenly bodies, which brings about the flow of the tide, and the attraction of the earth, which is weight, seemed to combine in the service of Gilliatt. There was no hesitation or pause in their subordination, and, under the pressure of a human soul, these passive powers were becoming active auxiliaries. From minute to minute the work went steadily ahead, and the gap between the paunch and the wreck diminished insensibly. The conjunction was being achieved in silence, as if in terror of the man who was standing there. The elements were being given orders and were carrying them out.

Almost at the precise moment when the tide stopped rising, the cables stopped unwinding. Suddenly, but without any commotion, the pulley blocks ceased to work. The engines settled into the boat, as though put there by a powerful hand. They stood there, upright, erect, motionless, solidly fixed. The iron flooring lay level with its four corners resting squarely on the bottom of the boat.

The job was done. Gilliatt gazed at the scene, as if stunned. The poor fellow was not overcome by joy. He was bowed down by an immense happiness. He felt his limbs giving way; and faced with his triumph, this man, hitherto quite untroubled, began to tremble. He looked at the paunch below the wreck and at the engines in the paunch. It seemed as if he could not believe what he had done, as if he had not been expecting to succeed. He had performed a miracle, and he looked on the result with astonishment.

This feeling did not last long. Then, as if waking from sleep, he seized the saw, cut the eight cables, and, now, thanks to the rising tide, standing only some ten feet above the paunch, jumped into it. Taking a coil of rope, he made four slings, passed them through the rings he had fixed on the paunch's sides, and fastened on each side the four chains of the funnel that an hour before had been attached to the sides of the Durande. The funnel once secured, he freed the upper part of the engine house. A square section of planking from the Durande's deck was still attached to it. He stripped it off, relieving the paunch of this encumbrance of planking and joists, and threw it onto the reef, usefully lightening the boat.

The paunch remained steady under the additional weight of the engines, as he had expected she would. Although she sat lower in the water, she still had adequate freeboard. The engines of the Durande were heavy, but not so heavy as the load of stones and the cannon he had brought back from Herm in the paunch.

And so it was all over. Nothing now remained but to return to Guernsey.