Bertram Mitford - Fordham's Feud

For awhile nobody spoke. Those in charge of the boat knew exactly what to do, and did it – fortunately so, or the fate of every soul there was sealed. In the teeth of the fierce tornado it was all the three strong men could do to keep steerage way on her, and well they knew that should she fall away for one instant the next would witness her capsize. And ever the huge waves flung her from crest to crest, drenching her occupants, while the air was filled with clouds of spray torn from the breaking summits and hurled away high overhead.

“Oh, my God!” shrieked Scott, his eyes starting from his wet and livid countenance, as a sudden volume of water struck him full on the neck, nearly knocking him overboard. “Oh, my God! We shall never see land again?”

“Shut your mouth, you snivelling sneak?” said Philip, exasperated beyond all patience. “Look at Miss Wyatt there and then heave your pitiful cowardly carcase overboard.” At which remark Fordham laughed aloud, his short, dry guffaw more sardonic than ever.

But the wretched chaplain was impervious even to this humiliation, so abject, so overmastering was his terror. He cowered in the bottom of the boat, his face hidden in his hands, moaning.

“Get up, will you!” cried Fordham, savagely. “You’re in Miss Wyatt’s way. And make yourself useful if you can. Take that hat of yours and bale like the devil.”

The peremptory tone had some effect, and the wretched man made an effort to obey. But a fresh sea dashed the hat from his hands and carried it away.

“This’ll never do,” muttered Fordham, in a tone only audible to Philip. “Why can’t those two damned women rouse themselves and bear a hand, instead of screeching there like stuck pigs?”

The General had been baling away manfully, but it was terribly uphill work, for every wave that struck the boat sent a pouring, hissing stream right into her.

But if her two girl friends were cowering and trembling under the terror of death, no weakness of the kind had impaired the calm resolution of Alma Wyatt. With head bent slightly forward and brows knitted, she never removed her steadfast glance from the work before her. Her eyes full of blinding spray, her wrists stiff and aching with the terrible strain upon them, she watched the advance of each crushing billow, appalling, unnerving in its towering height, and the boat’s head was held true, though her whole frame would tremble with the fearful exertion involved. Philip, tugging manfully at his oars, noted all this. Even though they should go down he did not care greatly, in the excitement and ecstasy of the moment. They would die together, at any rate.

The flying wrack was so thick that they could not see fifty yards around on either side. Already it seemed darkening as with the closing in of twilight. To lie tossing about on the angry surging expanse all night would be a serious matter. Still, Fordham felt sure that the waves had somewhat abated in fierceness. But the muttered remark of Jules Berthod behind him shattered this hope just as he was on the point of expressing it.

“ Nom de Dieu! Cochon de veni! Voilà que ça va nous accrocher de nouveau. Cette fois on va chavirer. Oui, cette fois on coulera – nom de nom !”

Again that terrible vibrating hum was in the air. A fresh gust was upon them. The boat half full of water, all hands nearly played out after their abnormal exertions – how could they live out a fresh tornado?

“All up, Phil. Stand clear for a swim directly,” he said, in an undertone.

Philip could hardly repress a start. Well he knew the other would not so have spoken without good reason. Besides, the hideous symptoms of renewed tempest were now manifest even to his ear. He looked hard at Alma, and his plans were laid. The instant the boat went over he would seize her and drag her clear of the struggling crowd. If possible he would secure an oar, which would help to keep them up. He was a strong swimmer and felt that they might stand a chance. At the same time he realised that it would be a very poor one.

On it came, the howling of the hurricane, the livid line of boiling seas. But this time not in that mountainous wall, for the windows of heaven were opened and a mighty rain descended with such violence as to beat down the heads of the waves, which, flattened beneath the terrific force of the downpour, had lost much of their power for peril. For a quarter of an hour this continued, then a red straggling glow stole athwart the livid scud.

“ Bon !” muttered Jules. “ Cette fois on ne coulera pas. Mais non !”

The red glow brightened. Suddenly as the parting of curtains, the dark wrack opened out, revealing a patch of blue sky. Then a golden sun-ray shot through, and lo! the whole ridge of the purple Jura, lying beyond the great heaving, tumbling mass of blue water dotted with myriads of white foamy crests.

“Hurrah!” roared Philip. “We’ve weathered it this time. Fordham, old chap, isn’t that our haven?” as a grey town about three miles distant stood disclosed by the retreating scud.

“Yes, that’s Vevey all right,” was the answer. “Give way. We shall be there in half an hour or so. I needn’t tell you how to steer now, Miss Wyatt. Hold up for a little while longer, Mr Scott. This company does not carry a steward.” For the unfortunate chaplain, relieved of his fears as to mortal extinction, began to show symptoms of falling a prey to the agonies of sea sickness.

There was still a pretty stiff sea running, and every now and then a wave would strike them, sousing them from head to foot. But it was little enough they cared for this after their recent experiences, and soon the boat was running in under the lee of the débarcadère .

Quite a little crowd had collected to witness the landing of these “mad English,” as they put it. Then, directing Berthod to call later for the very liberal remuneration awaiting him, the whole party started for the Hôtel Monnet to get their dripping clothes dried and to dine, causing quite a sensation as they hurried through the streets of the sleepy little town, in their capacity of shipwrecked castaways.

Life at a mountain hotel affected by our compatriots is very much like life on board a passenger ship, with the difference and manifest advantages that the Johnsonian definition of the latter does not apply to the former, and you can generally steer clear of a bore – unless he, or she, should happen to be too near you at table, that is. But life on the whole is a free and easy unconventional thing, and as a rule everybody knows everybody, and people who as neighbours at home would take about two years to get beyond the rigid afternoon call, and cup-of-weak-tea stage of social intercourse, here become as “thick as thieves” in the same number of days. A chance walk does it, or a seat in proximity at table d’hôte ; peradventure the fact that both venerate the same star Boanerges at home, or are alike enthusiastic believers in “General” Booth’s scheme; or it may be that both hold in common a choice bit of scandal concerning some other person or persons in the house. And then, as our said compatriots are nothing if not clique-ish, coteries will abound wherever these may be gathered together. There will be the chaplain’s clique and the worldly clique; the clique that won’t tolerate bores at any price, and that in which they reign paramount, and so on, and so on. But with all these dubious elements of weak humanity in active operation, life at such an hotel is rather a pleasant thing than otherwise, and to him who can derive diversion from the study of a heterogeneous crowd of his compatriots off their guard, vastly amusing.

Now with a gathering of this sort, three-fourths of it composed of the other sex, such a fellow as Philip Orlebar was pretty sure to be in general request; and within forty-eight hours of his arrival he was on good terms with very nearly everybody in the house. In fact, he was in danger of becoming “the rage”; for, apart from his good looks and rather taking manners, the superior sex was almost entirely represented by two or three quiet university men, a sprinkling of parsons, and a few contemporaries of General Wyatt. So, as was his wont, he threw himself with zest into the thing, determined to get all the fun out of it he could; and, truth to tell, he managed to get a good deal.