FOG AND WRECK.
ANY one who was on board the Newhaven and Dieppe steamer Seaford,' which was sunk in mid-Channel in August, 1895, must be fully conscious of the similarity of his experiences to those of the passengers on board the yacht Argonaut.' Between two and three hundred persons were on board and were saved in both cases ; both vessels foundered in about the same length of time after being struck ; the passengers of both were taken off by the striking vessel ; in both cases the striking vessel was herself in danger of sinking ; in neither case was there a trace of panic; and, finally, from both vessels every soul came safe to land with dry feet, if with shaken nerves. It is not, we think, priding ourselves too greatly, or attributing to self-control what is due to chance, to take some satisfaction in the reflection that so much that is creditable can be retrieved from disaster. People who have bent their minds to pleasure and are over- taken by a catastrophe are, one might think, in the least suitable mental state to endure peril, and are therefore good material for panic. It is consoling to know that even in these circumstances our common character, which is alleged, with some reason, to have become more emotional, more liable to dangerous revulsions of feeling, is still capable of a useful phlegm,—a state of mind which, no doubt, dislikes being confronted with death, but which, at all events, holds itself well enough together to avoid making things worse by any abandonment of the senses.
The present writer was "a humble unit," as Matthew Arnold says, among those who were wrecked in the Seaford,' and he thinks it worth while to describe the episode, if only because it was so different from what he expected, and from what he imagines the general conception of such a wreck to be. The Seaford' was only a few months old, and was the last word in those days of speed and comfort. She was built in separate water-tight compartments, and was reputed un- sinkable. The last time she left Dieppe was on a day the least sinister that one can conceive. The sky was cloudless, the sun hot, the sea dazzling and without a ripple. For a hot day it was a particularly clear day ; as Dieppe was left behind, one could see the square sails of a topsail schooner, which was hull-down, fifteen miles away as plainly as if they were pencilled on paper. Every one was on deck. The passengers, unable to think of sea-sickness, concerned themselves with polite conflicts for the shadiest spots on deck. The ' Seaford' had steamed perhaps twenty knots at full speed when some one remarked that the English coast was in sight. "Not yet —impossible," said another, more knowing. " But it's quite plain. I can see the cliffs." The " cliffs " were a long, low, level bank, chalky white, ahead. It might easily have been land if land could possibly have been there. "It's clouds," said some one. Long before that time the captain bad, no doubt, said to himself : " Fog." It lay densely packed
and level, a battlement on the horizon, as solid as only a wet sea-fog, the cumulus of thunderstorms and the piling up of the trade-wind clouds, can be. When it was reached it was a vertical wall; one could tell the exact spot at which the ' Seaford's ' bow pierced it ; in a moment one felt the chilliness of the douche; the fog streamed like smoke along the deck, and in a few moments the wet drops hung like a rimy frost to the hair and beards of men. The telegraph to the engine-room rang ; the quiver of the high speed ceased, and the pulsation of the screws died down. With regular blasts of her fog-horn the ship crept ahead, the officers on the bridge watching and listening motionless. There was no darkness in this fog ; it was radiant, capturing and holding the sunlight, and as one looked into the baffling pall ahead one was exasperated that so brilliant a thing could so eclipse the world. And, again, it was so low that one .could still look upwards through it to the blue sky and see the golden trucks gleam enchantingly in the sen. As we came into the track of vessels moving up and down Channel, fog-horns could be beard bleating here and there, some sharp and well defined, others muffled and distant. Irony arranged that we should run all this gauntlet with success, and be sunk by a steamer belonging to the same line as the Seaford' which was crossing the Channel, and for which the 'Seaford's ' officers'were actually looking out.
Presently a fog-horn sounded nearer than any before. The captain pulled the line to . his own whistle and gave blast for blast. Precisely how this marine conversation was conducted does 'not live in the memory, but blast answered blast. "I'm coining thid way," one blast seemed to say.—"I'm going that way myself," blared the other.—" Well, I'll change my Course."" No, no; I've changed mine." All too late ; no one, if the writer remembers rightly, was to blame; but at last a bull-like voice gave a final warning full in our ears. And as we looked into the dripping fog at the spot where it was shattered by the sound, the impalpable whiteness had a sudden suggestion of more solidity ; a dark stain took shape,— the bows, funnel, mast, bridge of the other ship grew magically out of the fog and burst through. She was upon us. It all happened in silence. One looked on spellbound. The crash came. The 'Seaford' was cut into just abaft of amidships.
The crash, after all, was not a terrifying crash. It cut a slit in the side of the Seaford,' and crushed the bulwarks into splinters, but only a few people fell to the deck. The writer,' who saw the collision coming, had no difficulty in keeping his feet. After the first exclamations of dismay there was a certain reassurance. Had not the Seaford' water- tight compartments throughout? Was she not unsinkable ? And the officers, when asked if there were any danger, stiflingly said, " No, not the least." The writer, in accord- ance with his imaginary picture of shipwreck, had expected the captain to take the situation visibly in hand : bawl orders from the bridge showing his authority and confidence, and impress and manage the passengers like a flock of sheep. But the captain said nothing to us, going on quietly with what he thought necessary. Perhaps he knew that blusteringly to dragoon us with the voice of Stentor would be to create the alarm he meant to avert. At all events, his plan was justified by its success. The officers by their bearing, and the passengers by their disjected remarks, buoyed up their hopes in their own informal, stolid way. For two or three minutes the small cargo-ship which had run us down remained fast in the hole she had made. In those moments one man on board the ' Seaford' swung himself up by her chains and gained her deck. Then she backed away ; and as the fog enfolded her and she faded, a new anxiety arose lest we should lose sight of her altogether. The first suspicion of the truth that the ' Seaford' was doomed ' which came to the writer was when he went down to the saloon to look for a handbag. The sea was pouring in in a smooth green cascade. He remembers his astonishment that so much water should have made so little difference to the feel of the ship. The legs of the chairs were under water. Coming on deck again with this knowledge, he found that the prospect was still not nearly so disconcerting as he bad imagined. He was alone, without responsibility, and could swim well; and then there were the boats, and the sea was just an unruffled lake, positively almost inviting. The
vision of an infirm old lady who was by this time wearing a lifebelt fitted on with pathetic inefficiency changed his thoughts. He saw in a flash, and admired then, as he has admired ever since, the self-possession of those who bad children with them, or others dependent on them, and for whom, remember, being cast into the sea was virtually synonymous with being drowned. He is never likely to underestimate the inestimable confidence which the ability to swim brings at such a time as that, and perhaps he has more impatience than most people of the careless- ness in making this safeguard universal. Our captain must have known now that he was sinking, but the officers still smiled reassuringly. By this time the cargo-ship had come up on the other side of us, and that was the crowning mercy of the adventure. Her captain might have been held justified in keeping clear of us as his ship was in great danger, and his own crew were in the eyes of the law his first concern. If he had not come alongside as quickly as be did, or if there had been anything of a sea running, it is almost certain that' the passengers could not have been transferred in time. But it is superfluous to speculate. Boards and gangways were thrown across from one ship to another. The women crossed first, the crew last. The writer has a vivid picture in his mind of the deck of the Seaford' as he looked back at her dropping lower in the water ; it, was strewn with bent and broken umbrellas and sticks, and he supposes that at the moment of the collision the passengers had tried to steady themselves with these, which had doubled up or snapped under them. When all were on board the cargo-ship, she moved a short distance away from the 'Seaford.' The end of the disaster was dim, yet plain enough to be memorable. The Seaford' was sinking by the stern ; the blow, by singular ill-luck, 'had struck her between her two chief compartments, and 'had opened up both. About half-an-hour after the collision her taffrail was level with the water. Shortly afterwards her bows shot high up in the air, revealing her keel perhaps a third of its length. Then she rolled slowly over to port and subsided gently in that position. The water poured in at her funnels. Some one said : "Look out ! now- the boilers will blow up." But the belief that this always takes place was falsified. Nothing resembling it happened. There was no noise, no fuss. Suddenly one was conscious that the Seaford' was no longer there. That was ' all. She had gone underneath like a spectre. But for. ten minutes after she disappeared there was a commotion above her on the sea. It was rather like the mound of water which wells up when a " main " is turned on in the street. And to the top of this mound parts of . the
• Seaford '-itieces, of furniture, chairs, gratings, cushions, and such-like—were continually being shot up to float placidly away beyond the disturbance.
The captain of the cargo-ship pointed for Newhaven, and steamed very slowly. His battered stem would bear no pressure to speak of, and he kept his pumps going. He ordered all the passengers to sit as far aft as possible, and so small. was his vessel that this made a very appreciable difference to her trim. Thus he kept the bows as high in the water as possible. The passengers sat in a packed mass on the deck very strange to see. A few women had fainted, and stewards and stewardesses stepped round with brandy. This was really the anxious time, for if the cargo-ship sank there was little chance for people thrown into the sea thirty miles from land in a fog. But suddenly the scene changed most cheeringly. The fog streamed away, and the sea was once again bright and clear. There were the bemused and blinded ships which bad been so lately hooting at one another all round us, sharp and plain to see. Probably not one of them, even the nearest, guessed what had happened. And, indeed, even to us it seemed incredible. On this gentle, innocent sea bad we just seen a fine vessel sent to the bottom ? It had been rather like a murder on the stage. The lights had been turned down, the horrifying thing had been promptly and effectually done ; but now the lights were up again,—and after all, did one believe in it ? At our cautious speed it was a long voyage to Newhaven, and before we arrived there a passenger collected his wits sufficiently to constitute himself spokesman, as some one always does apparently -on these occasions, and make a pretty little speech about the captain and the crew, which they certainly deserved.
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