sick of going ahead, and turning astarn, and easing her, and stopping her, and the rest of it; but then, you know, if we didnt look sharp we should soon be into something, or over it, just as it happened.
I remember once we were in the Humber. It was winter time, when the great river was covered with floating ice; and as we went along slowly to get in midstream, you could hear the paddle-wheels battering and shattering the small pieces, so that one expected the floats to be knocked all to pieces; while the ragged, jaggy fragments of ice were driven far enough under water, and then rose up amongst the foam to go rushing and bumping along the side of the ship, tearing and grinding one another as they went. It was terribly slow work, for we were obliged to work at quarter speed, and now and then wed come with a tremendous shock against some floating block, which then went grating along till the chaps in front of the paddles caught it at the end of their hitchers, and so turned it off, or the paddles must have been smashed.
You see, the tide was coming up, and all this floating ice that had come down, out of the Ouse and Trent, was being brought back again from Humbers mouth. Pretty nigh high water it was, but we started a little sooner, so as to see our way through the ice before night came on; and as I stood on deck, having come up for a moment or two, of all the dreary sights I ever saw that was the worst. Far as eye could reach there was ice-covered water, mist, and the heavy clouds seeming to settle down upon the distant banks.
It was getting fast on towards evening, and seeing me up, the captain began to talk a bit about the state of the river, and whether we hadnt better anchor, while I could hardly hear him from the clattering noise made by the paddle-floats upon the ice.
Cold place to anchor, I says, as I looked round the deck; and then I says, Be clearer as soon as we gets nearer Grimsby. So we kept on, and I went down to join my stoker giving an eye to the engine, and after a few words I went up again and took a look about me. And what a wretched lookout the deck of a Hull boat is. You see its a cheap way of getting up to London, and parliamentary trains aint nowhere in comparison for cheapness, so that you have rather a poor lot of passengers; and then, what with the cargo, and one thing and another, always including the poor folks as is sick, and them as is trying to make themselves so, why, you may find much pleasanter places than the deck of a Hull steamer. But, there, the decks bad enough, so what do you suppose the fore-cabin is? Its enough to make your heart bleed sometimes to see the poor miserable-looking objects we have on board, some half-clothed and looking less than half-fed as they crouch about the deck or huddle down in the cabin. Then theres always a lot of children, and the poor, tired, cold, hungry little things soon let you know as theyre on board, and very loudly, too, making every one else miserable and wretched into the bargain.
Id been giving an eye to all this, and thinking how very much pleasanter everything would have been if we had had a fine summers evening for our voyage, when all at once, above the rattle and clatter of the ice amongst the paddles, I heard a horrible wild shriek from just over the side of the ship. Like half a dozen more, I ran to the side directly, and looked over, when just at the same moment I saw two men standing up in a little boat one a sailor chap or boatman, and the other evidently a passenger; for in the glance I took I could see a bag and a box in the boat.
No doubt they had been hailing, but the noise of the paddles stopped any one from hearing, while the coming evening prevented any one from seeing them till they were close on to us, and the little boat gliding along the ships side in company with the ice.
The boatman seemed to have lost his nerve, or else he would have tried to hook on with a hitcher; but he stood quite still, and as we all looked, one of the men who had been keeping off the ice made a dash at the boat with his hook, but missed her; and the next instant there was a loud shriek and a crash, and the little boat and the two men were out of sight under the great paddle-wheel of the steamer.
I dashed to the skylight, and shouted Stop her! to my mate, and the paddle-wheels ceased going round; when I followed all on deck to the side abaft the paddle-box, and in the dim light I could just see the swamped boat come up and pass astarn of us, floating amongst the ice.
Here, get out a boat! cried the captain, and directly after four of us were rowing about amongst the ice, trying to find the two poor fellows who had been beaten down. Now we tried one way, and now another, and always with the great thick sheets of ice grinding against us, and forcing the boat about; while I could not help thinking what a poor
chance the best of swimmers would have had in the icy water, amongst the sharp, ragged-edged floes that were sweeping by.
It had got to be almost dark now, and the steamer lay some distance off, so that we could only see her by the lights hung out; when just as we had made up our minds that nothing more could be done, and were turning the boats head, there came a hail from the steamer for us to return.