Typhoon eBook

Joseph M. Carey
This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 116 pages of information about Typhoon.

Typhoon eBook

Joseph M. Carey
This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 116 pages of information about Typhoon.

They were not clear as to what would have to be done.  “What is it?  What is it?” they were asking each other.  The boatswain tried to explain; the sounds of a great scuffle surprised them:  and the mighty shocks, reverberating awfully in the black bunker, kept them in mind of their danger.  When the boatswain threw open the door it seemed that an eddy of the hurricane, stealing through the iron sides of the ship, had set all these bodies whirling like dust:  there came to them a confused uproar, a tempestuous tumult, a fierce mutter, gusts of screams dying away, and the tramping of feet mingling with the blows of the sea.

For a moment they glared amazed, blocking the doorway.  Jukes pushed through them brutally.  He said nothing, and simply darted in.  Another lot of coolies on the ladder, struggling suicidally to break through the battened hatch to a swamped deck, fell off as before, and he disappeared under them like a man overtaken by a landslide.

The boatswain yelled excitedly:  “Come along.  Get the mate out.  He’ll be trampled to death.  Come on.”

They charged in, stamping on breasts, on fingers, on faces, catching their feet in heaps of clothing, kicking broken wood; but before they could get hold of him Jukes emerged waist deep in a multitude of clawing hands.  In the instant he had been lost to view, all the buttons of his jacket had gone, its back had got split up to the collar, his waistcoat had been torn open.  The central struggling mass of Chinamen went over to the roll, dark, indistinct, helpless, with a wild gleam of many eyes in the dim light of the lamps.

“Leave me alone—­damn you.  I am all right,” screeched Jukes.  “Drive them forward.  Watch your chance when she pitches.  Forward with ’em.  Drive them against the bulkhead.  Jam ’em up.”

The rush of the sailors into the seething ’tween-deck was like a splash of cold water into a boiling cauldron.  The commotion sank for a moment.

The bulk of Chinamen were locked in such a compact scrimmage that, linking their arms and aided by an appalling dive of the ship, the seamen sent it forward in one great shove, like a solid block.  Behind their backs small clusters and loose bodies tumbled from side to side.

The boatswain performed prodigious feats of strength.  With his long arms open, and each great paw clutching at a stanchion, he stopped the rush of seven entwined Chinamen rolling like a boulder.  His joints cracked; he said, “Ha!” and they flew apart.  But the carpenter showed the greater intelligence.  Without saying a word to anybody he went back into the alleyway, to fetch several coils of cargo gear he had seen there—­chain and rope.  With these life-lines were rigged.

There was really no resistance.  The struggle, however it began, had turned into a scramble of blind panic.  If the coolies had started up after their scattered dollars they were by that time fighting only for their footing.  They took each other by the throat merely to save themselves from being hurled about.  Whoever got a hold anywhere would kick at the others who caught at his legs and hung on, till a roll sent them flying together across the deck.

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Project Gutenberg
Typhoon from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.