Donald was to go on duty with the mate's, or port watch, at midnight,
but he was awakened suddenly at six bells by loud shouting on deck and
the violent careening of the ship. Hinkel could be heard bawling,
"Ledt go royal und to'gallundt halliards and clew up! All handts!"
Then Jenkins opened the half-deck door for a second and yelled, "Roll
out! Look alive!" and mingled with his shout came the booming roar of
wind, the swash of heavy water and the thunder of slatting canvas.
"A ruddy pampero!" cried Thompson, leaping from his bunk and pulling
on his boots. "Jump, kid, she's on her beam ends!" Donald dropped to
the sloping floor of the berth, hauled his boots on the wrong feet,
and sprang after Thompson into the darkness. When he got outside he
cannoned into someone running aft, who cursed him and vanished in the
howling blackness. The lee scuppers were a boiling froth of water
waist deep, and up aloft the canvas was thundering as the royal and
t'gallant yards came down by the run. The ship was over on her port
side at an alarming angle, and for a minute Donald could do nothing
but hang on to the mizzen gear, gasping and dazed, until he got his
bearings.
The German second mate was barking commands from the break of the poop
when something banged aloft. A voice shouted, "Maint'gallan's'l's
gone!" Then Thompson grabbed him by the arm. "Bear a hand haulin' up
yer mains'l!" he roared, and Donald scrambled for'ard along the
sloping decks and hauled on the gear with a mob of "hey-ho'ing,"
swearing men. Then the mate appeared--(the captain was on the
poop)--and he gave tongue. "What in hell are you all adoin' here?" he
snarled. "Aloft an' stow th' fore an' main r'yals you boys! Git some
beef on those bunt-lin's, you hounds, or I'll kick some go in you!
None of yer 'You pull now, Bill, I pulled last' work here!"
From the height of the main-royal-yard, Donald could see the water to
windward white with foam. The stars were shining clear and bright to
the westward, but all was black in the eastern sky and the wind blew
in savage gusts, which gave them a hard tussle in subduing the
bellying, slatting canvas. By the time they had got the two royals
confined in the gaskets, the barque had come to an even keel and was
running before the blast under six topsails and foresail.
The crew had hauled up the cross'-jack, mainsail, and hauled down the
fore-and-aft sails and were aloft stowing the big t'gallan's'ls as the
barque swung off, staggering and rolling scuppers under in the cross
sea which was running, and as soon as the boys came down from the
royal yards, the mate chased them up the mast again to help furl the
mizzen-upper-topsail, which had been let go. On the completion of this
job, and when the crew were pretty well exhausted with pulling,
hauling and lifting, Thompson voiced the opinion of all hands: "God
help us when we strike some real wind and have to get the muslin off
her in a hurry," he said gloomily. "Those big yards and sails will
take charge of us then. We'll have to let the canvas blow away and pay
for it."
"Pay for it?" queried Donald innocently. "What d'ye mean?"
The senior apprentice laughed grimly. "I was referring to the old yarn
about a 'prentice boy who had a rich father. The mate ordered him up
one-time to stow the mizzen-royal in a squall. The kid squints aloft
and didn't like the look of the job, so he says to the mate, 'Oh, let
it blow away, sir; father will pay for it!' That's what we'll have to
do on this hooker, I'm thinking. I shiver when I think of handling
those big courses and tops'ls of ours in a real Cape Horner. We'll
catch it down there and no blushing error! If we only had _men_ for'ad
instead of flabby-muscled dock-rats we might get through, but it'll be
all hands every time there's a job o' work."
"How about that donkey engine?" queried Donald. "Isn't that supposed
to help in the heavy work?"
Thompson laughed sarcastically. "A fat lot you know, nipper!" he
cried. "Your lousy Scotch ship-owner puts in a donkey and cuts down the
crew, but he gives orders to the skipper that the donkey is not to be
used except on extra-special occasions. The donkey is the greatest
curse of sailormen these days and the owner reaps the benefit. He cuts
down the crew on the work it is _supposed_ to do, and saves money in
port by using it for loading and discharging cargo. That's your
labor-saving donkey for you!"
The two boys were in the half-deck changing their wet clothing and
donning their oilskins for a "stand-by" until their watch was called
at midnight, but Mr. Nickerson looked in and ordered them out. "Bear a
hand an' get that maint'gallan's'l unbent from the yard an' sent down.
It'll put ye in trim for Cape Stiff!"
The "pampero" was the first real dusting the barque had tackled, and
the old timers shook their heads ominously and muttered dread
prophecies of times to come. In the weight of the squalls blowing, and
under heavy weather sail, she made a dirty job of it, and it took two
men at the wheel, sweating, to try and steady her. Big seas piled up
astern and, overtaking the sluggish, deep-laden barque, broke on both
quarters and crashed aboard--filling the decks from fo'c'sle-head to
poop deck. "A ruddy half-tide rock!" growled the men as they worked in
water, waist-deep, handling the remains of the maint'gallan's'l, a
brand-new heavy weather sail, which had split in several places.
"Cheap gear for a cheap ship!" commented the sailmaker.
By the time the pampero had blown its edge off, Donald returned to
his binnacle-trimming and time-keeping job on the poop, and the
barque, braced sharp up and with lower stays'ls set, was plunging and
diving on her course to the Falklands and Cape Horn. There was a cold
bite to the wind that Donald had never felt before--precursor of the
bitter windy latitudes they were running into--and he scrambled into
the kindly lee of the chart-house. The lee port-hole was open and
Donald could hear the angry voice of the captain laying down the law
to the second mate. "Ye wur asleep on watch, mister," he was saying,
"or ye'd ha' seen that squall makin' up. It's a wonder tae me ye didny
jump th' masts oot of her.... She was in th' thick of it afore ye sung
out. Ye're a damned worthless sojer--that's whit ye are--an' yer spell
in jyle has made ye forget all th' seamanship ye iver knew...." Donald
opened his eyes. "Spell in jail?" He wondered, and as he had no
respect for either the Old Man or Hinkel, he kept his ears agog for
more. "Don't gie me ony back chat!" the skipper was shouting, "or I'll
dis-rate ye an' send ye forrard.... an' ye know what th' men'll dae if
they ken ye wur th' man what...." The boy strained his ears to catch
the remainder of the sentence when the mate's strident voice
interrupted with--"Boy! boy! Where'n Tophet has that ruddy young sojer
skulked to? Oh, ye're there, are ye? D'ye know it's five minutes of
eight bells? Look smart, naow, an' call th' starboard watch or I'll
trim yer hair for ye!"
Life under Mr. Nickerson's command was Heaven compared to his watches
with the bullying German, and Donald experienced a revival of spirits
at the change. Not that the Nova Scotian was an easy task-master. By
no means! But Nickerson was too much of a man to bully and ill-treat a
boy, though he was not so particular with the 'fore-mast hands. He was
a "driver" in every sense of the word and kept Thompson and McKenzie
up to the mark, but he never set them at useless "work-up" jobs.
Thompson, as an apprentice almost out of his time, he did not
interfere with much--Thompson was an able fellow, anyway, and would
make a smart officer when he got his ticket--but Donald was the
mate's particular protégé, and many a time the lad wished he did not
stand so high in the officer's favor.
"Boy," said the mate one afternoon a day or two after the pampero, "I
want to see ef ye've lost yer nerve after floppin' off that there gaff
th' other day. Naow, son, d'ye think ye kin shin up to that main truck
an' reeve off a signal halliard?" Donald stared up at the dizzy height
of the main-mast to where the truck capped it--a good one hundred and
eighty feet above deck--and felt some trepidation at the thought of
the job. Nickerson was watching him narrowly. "Haow abaout it, boy?"
he said.
"Yes, sir!" answered Donald after a moment's hesitation. "I'll go up,
sir!"
"Well, then, ask th' bos'n to give ye a coil o' signal halliard stuff
an' shin it up. Sharp, naow!" Everything with the mate was "Look
alive!" "Jump!" or "Nip along, you!" with a few blistering oaths added
to put the proper amount of "go" into the command. Anything moving
slow was the officer's _bete noir_, and the men used to remark that he
"sh'd ha' bin a ruddy ingine-driver on a perishin' mail train!"
Donald moved "sharp" and started aloft. There was a light breeze and
enough swell to cause the masts to sway in an arc of ten degrees. He
made the royal yard without difficulty--he had been up there often
before and under worse conditions--and after his climb up the Jacob's
ladder, he rested with his feet on the yard and held on to the eyes of
the royal rigging. From this giddy perch he had a wonderful view of
the ship one hundred and fifty feet below, and the fore-shortening of
her hull from this height made him feel as if this weight aloft would
cause her to capsize. Below him the sails bellied out in a succession
of snow-white curves--full and rounded with the wind and each silently
pulling the ship along--and the spreading rigging looked like a
spider's web radiating from where he stood. All around was sea and sky
and the wake of the barque could be seen making a foamy path through
the greeny-blue of ocean, with a few sea-birds wheeling above it. A
gull sailed past him--squawking as if in jealous anger at the boy
invading its ethereal realm, then the mate's stentorian voice floated
up from below, "Nip up, naow! Ye've bin sight-seein' long enough!"
Glancing up at the thrusting height of the sky-sail pole to the truck
thirty feet above, a slight wave of fear came over him--an aftermath
of his jigger-gaff experience--and he closed his eyes for a moment
until his nerve returned. There was no skys'l yard crossed on the
_Kelvinhaugh_ and no means of getting up to the truck save by shinning
up the greasy pole with the aid of the skys'l back-stay. With the
halliard in his teeth, he took a long breath and grasping the stay
with one hand and encircling the mast with his left arm and his legs,
he started up and reached the eyes of the skys'l rigging, perspiring
and gasping. From the eyes of the rigging, the pole up-thrust, smooth
and bare, for about eight feet and, gulping a deep breath, he wriggled
and grasped the smooth spar with his two hands. In a few seconds he
brought the round sphere of the truck on a level with his head, and
hanging on to the mast with legs and his left arm, he took the
halliard from between his teeth and thrust it up through the sheave in
the truck with his free hand.
By this time he was almost exhausted with the effort of the climb and
holding the weight of his body on the greasy spar with one arm. But
though he had thrust the end of the halliard up through the sheave, he
had yet to bring the end down through the pulley hole, and this called
for a hand to hold the line and another to reeve it down through. The
rolling of the ship was swaying the mast, and, as he hung desperately
on to loo'ard, the dead-weight of his body almost wrenched the muscles
out of his shoulders and arms. The swinging of the mast was nauseating
him in his excited condition, and he felt his strength gradually
ebbing. The breath was hissing through his clenched teeth in rapid
gasps; his heart was pounding fiercely, and his imagination began to
picture horrid visions of him hurtling through the air and crashing to
the deck.
"I've got to do it! I've got to do it!" he panted, and making a
supreme effort he thrust the line into his left hand, and reaching
over the truck with the other, pushed the end down and through.
Grasping this in his teeth, he slid down the pole, caught the skys'l
backstay and swung down to the spreader of the cross-trees.
Exhausted, sick and shaky, he sat on the spreader for a few moments
until breath and composure was restored, and then he came down on deck
and belayed the halliard. Mr. Nickerson was smoking a clay pipe and
leaning back in a corner of the poop rail when he mounted the ladder
and reported, "Halliard's rove, sir!" The mate looked quizzically at
him for a second, and taking the pipe from his mouth, remarked, "Ye
were a hell of a long time doin' it!" After accomplishing what, to
Donald, seemed a most hazardous and herculean feat, this was all the
praise he got. It was the way of the sea!
In the night watch the mate called Donald over to him. It was a quiet
evening--cold but clear, and with a moderate breeze blowing. "Son," he
said, "would you go aloft again to-morrow an' reeve another signal
halliard?"
"Yes, sir!" answered the boy bravely, and wondering what was coming.
"Y'ain't scared?"
"Not now, sir. I was while I was up there, but I won't be next time."
Nickerson seemed pleased. "That's why I sent you up, boy," he said. "I
wanted to see if your nerve was good. You'll do, son!" He puffed away
at his pipe for a spell.
"What d'ye cal'late makes the Old Man an' Hinkel treat you the way
they do? S'pose ye spin me something of how ye come to go to sea." He
spoke kindly.
McKenzie told him in a short narration the events which were
responsible for his being on the _Kelvinhaugh_. The mate plied him
with questions and grunted at the answers. "So yer old man was skipper
of the _Ansonia_, was he?" he ejaculated one time during the boy's
story.
"Yes, sir! Did you know him?" Donald had not mentioned the _Ansonia_.
Nickerson affected not to hear. "Go on with yer yarn," he growled, and
when Donald had finished, he asked, "This Hinkel, naow. Hev ye ever
seen him afore? No? D'ye know anything about him?"
"Well--er--I'm not sure," said the boy doubtfully, "except what I
overheard the other night." And in answer to the officer's queries, he
told him of the "spell in jail" and "if the men knew you were the man"
fragments which had come to his ears through the open port. Mr.
Nickerson was greatly interested. "Humph!" he commented. "Said he'd
been in jail did he?" Then he straightened up with a jerk and slapped
the rail with his hand and the smack made Donald jump. "I've got him,
by thunder! I've got him dead to loo'ard this time!" he ejaculated. "I
knew I wasn't far out when I told him the other night I had his flag
and number!" Then quietly he said, "Son, did ye ever hear the story
about the ship _Orkney Isles_ and a little 'prentice boy name of Willy
McFee? No? Well, alright! Ask McLean to step aft here a moment and you
skin along and see what time it is instead of yarning here. Hump
yourself naow!" Donald "humped"--smiling at the young officer's
peculiar manner.
Holding on down the South American coast, the _Kelvinhaugh_ began to
prepare for the ordeal ahead. Her winter weather canvas had already
been bent, and the carpenter was busy re-wedging the hatches and with
his crony, the bos'n, getting the ship's gear chocked, lashed and
restowed. They went about their work with ominous head-shakings, and
the ordinary seamen were beginning to exhibit signs of nervousness
with the ceaseless recital of the barque's faults and the Horn in
winter, which the old-timers were forever croaking about. In the
dog-watches, there was less yarning and skylarking around the
fore-hatch, and oilskins, re-patched and re-oiled, hung in the sun
around the fore-rigging--unmistakable forecasts of dirty weather ahead
in the coming days.
In the half-deck, the boys spent their evenings yarning and playing
cards--all but McKenzie, who was busy overhauling his wretched kit.
Moore had a splendid outfit of everything in the way of oil-clothes
and warm clothing, so he didn't worry--neither did he offer to augment
Donald's meagre rig. Thompson and Jenkins had a miscellaneous
collection of clothing sadly in need of overhaul, but they were young
and thoughtless. The Horn didn't scare them! No, by Jupiter, _they_
were rough and tough and had hair on their chests--they would start
straightening out their gear in plenty of time. When she crossed
forty-five south it would be time enough to make and mend for
fifty-five! So they bragged, but it was safe bragging, as they knew
they'd have the captain's slop chest to fall back on. Thompson had
rounded the Horn before, but he did it in summer from Australia, and
with a brave west wind astern. He'd never experienced the passage in
winter, and he was not impressed. McKenzie was an "old woman" for his
pains, they said, but Donald preferred to heed the advice of men like
Martin and McLean and to prepare, as the bos'n and chips were
preparing the ship. They weren't doing that for nothing. Not by a long
shot!
So he stitched and patched and oiled and did the best he could with
his shoddy gear, and the best was not enough. He knew it, but he did
not complain. One may growl about the ship, the weather, the mates and
things extraneous, but lamentations about one's bodily ills or aches,
the work one has to do, a wetting or a freezing, is bad form aboard
ship and receives no sympathetic hearing. "Serve you dam' well right.
What did you come to sea for?" is the invariable answer to such
whines.
The barque crossed "forty-five" in a chilly blow, and for two days
they had wild tussles aloft with wet, heavy canvas, and severe
knockings about on flooded decks hauling on clewing-up gear or braces,
downhauls and halliards. Then the "hairy chesters" began to get busy,
but the time had gone when oilskins could be re-oiled and dried in the
sun. The days were shortening rapidly and the sun's warmth was
becoming nullified by the chill of the high latitudes. Each knot they
reeled off to the south'ard saw the sea changing from a warm blue to a
frigid green, and azure skies to a gloomy lead-colored pall, solid
with potential gales.
Captain Muirhead was nervous--all hands could see that. He spent more
time on deck and hovered between barometer and binnacle, and when the
ship came up with fifty degrees south, he ordered the royal yards sent
down on deck--much to the unvoiced scorn of the mate--and the
_Kelvinhaugh_ was now reduced in canvas to nothing above her big
single topgallantsails.
Nickerson sneered mentally. "How does the looney think she's agoin' to
make her westing under these clipped kites? All right to send down
yards in a light ship, but this heavy drogher.... Huh! Ef it was some
of th' Bluenosers or Saint John packets I've sailed in, they ratch her
around under skys'ls, by Jupiter! No wonder these limejuicers never
make a passage when they have these careful old women in command of
them. Huh!"
They wallowed down past the Falklands in remarkably fine weather
for the latitude, and headed for Cape St. John on Staten
Island--easternmost sentinel to the stormy Horn. There was no doubt
now of the times ahead. Snow had fallen once or twice, and ice had
formed on deck and lower rigging in early morning hours, but the
gales...?
"I don't like this," growled Martin to Donald one dog-watch, as they
peered at the yellow sunset over towards the Fuegian coast. There was
a long rolling sea coming up from the south'ard, with the push of the
Pacific Antarctic drift, and the wind had been "knocking her off" all
the afternoon, until the yards were braced "on the back-stays." There
was a chilly spite in the breeze, which was beginning to pipe up a
mournful note in the wire standing rigging, and the south was a black
wall, in which sea and sky merged as one. "There's dirt acomin' afore
long ef I know the signs, but that ruddy Dutch greaser don't know
enough to strip her for it. Ef I was you youngster, I'd go'n turn in
right now an' catch up on sleep, for, mark me well, it'll be Cape
Stiff afore mornin'!"
Donald took the bos'n's advice and, refusing to join the little game
of "nap" which the half-deckers were playing for plug-tobacco stakes,
he rolled into his bunk and slept, but not before he had placed his
boots and oilskins in a handy place.
He was in the midst of a delightful dream some hours later, wherein he
was a spectator watching a young, lean, hawk-nosed pirate, strangely
like Mr. Nickerson, prodding his Uncle David, Captain Muirhead and
Hinkel down a plank out-thrust from the side of the _Kelvinhaugh_. At
the barque's jigger-gaff flew a black flag, upon which was the skull
and cross-bones in white. Uncle David was screaming for mercy, and
Nickerson was jabbing him in the back with the point of a huge
cutlass. Then the scene changed and the mate was pouring bags of
golden sovereigns into his lap and telling him to take them home to
his mother. "Buy a castle, son," he was saying, "and one with
beautiful trees and gardens with wonderful flowers--flowers with nice
smells to them--geraniums, roses, honey-suckles, rhododendrons,
mignonettes, and don't forget pansies, pretty velvet-petaled
pansies--" There came a frightful lurch of the ship which flung him
rudely against the steel wall of the berth, a roaring of a big wind on
deck and the staggering crash of heavy seas cascading over the rails.
Guttural yells sounded from the poop. "Led go to'gallundt halliards!"
and someone bawled through the half-deck ventilator. "All out for
God's sake!" In the dark, Donald grabbed his boots and oilskins and
Thompson shouted, "Hell's bells! Strike a light someone! Here's Cape
Horn!"