Donald Mckenzie celebrated two noteworthy events in Havana, Cuba. One
was his twenty-first birthday, and the other was the successful
completion of his first voyage as master of a vessel. She wasn't a
very big vessel--being but a fishing schooner of 99 tons--but still
she was a vessel and required as much skill in sailing and navigating
as a craft ten times her size. Judson Nickerson, in the brig _Queen's
County_, had arrived in Matanzas a couple of days before McKenzie
attained his majority, and he journeyed the forty miles or so to
Havana to help his friend celebrate the occasion.
McKenzie, a man grown, tall, lithe and sinewy, sea-tanned and good
looking, and dressed in white ducks and a Panama hat, met his former
skipper in the rotunda of the Hotel Sevilla. "Waal, by Jupiter!" cried
Nickerson, wringing his hand. "You got daown here anyways, an' you
ain't pushed any of th' Bahamas off th' charts in gittin' here, have
you? And you're twenty-one, eh? Lord Harry, Donny-boy, you make me
feel old--"
"Yes, you look old, you ancient crock!" laughed the other, staring at
his friend critically. Judson had lost some of his ranginess, his
angularities had filled out, and his sharp face had smoothed and
rounded, until he looked younger than ever he did in _Kelvinhaugh_
days. "Why you're only a mere fifteen-year jump ahead of me, and
since you've been living a quiet, settled life for the past four
years, the lines of dissipation have faded--"
"The lines of starvation, you mean," cried the other. "Since I left
your hard-feeding Scotch ships an' got home into Bluenosers again,
I've gained weight, and so have you, let me tell you. Where do we
celebrate?"
"Right here, old timer," answered Donald. "I've got a meal ordered
that will make your mouth water, and with everything to drink from
_pina frias_ to planter's punch." And they entered the cool,
high-ceilinged dining room and sat down at a table by the _patio_.
"I suppose you'll try to go afishin' in that ol' hooker of yours this
spring," queried Judson. "You should do all right. You know the ropes
naow an' ye've done two seasons in the dory with me. Will Heneker give
you the _Alameda_ for a fishin' trip this spring, d'ye think?"
McKenzie pursed his lips. "I'm not sure, Jud. You see I offered to
take her down here with a load of salt fish when Tom Himmelman took
sick, as you know, and I didn't get a chance to broach the subject. I
was glad of the opportunity to skipper a vessel, and I didn't ask for
too much. But when I get home I'll ask Heneker to give me a chance as
skipper afishing, and if I take good care of the old _Alameda_ he
might give me charge of her or another of his hookers. Fishing is the
only game to make money in. There isn't much in this freighting work,
but it's a good way to pass the winter and earn a dollar or two. Do
you know, you old fox, I think you had a hand in getting me this
command?"
Captain Nickerson gave an enigmatical smile. "Skipper of a
double-trawl dory is better than being mate of the finest wind-jammer
afloat. You're boss anyway--no matter the size. You 'member the old
yarn 'bout the big P. and O. liner going out of London River? Her
mate, brass-bound to the eyes, was standing in the bows when an old
barge sculled across the river in front of the liner an' th' mate had
to signal to the bridge to slow the engines to prevent a collision.
Then he opens up on the bargee. 'You blankety-blank scowbanker!' he
bawls. 'What in Tophet d'ye mean by scullin' yer old punt 'crost th'
bows of a liner carryin' Her Majesty's mails an' a thousan'
passengers?' The bargee shoots a squirt of tobacco juice over th'
liner's stem as he sculls past, and he looks up at th' brass-bound
mate with all of a London bargee's contempt for a deep waterman. 'Oo
th' 'ell are you aboard that 'ooker?' he shouts. 'I'm the chief
officer of this packet!' answers the mate. Mister Bargee spits again
and retorts, 'Well, Mister Chief H'officer,' he says, 'I'm capting of
this 'ere barge, so you'd better go'n talk to yer equals, you
brass-bound bridge monkey!'"
The guffaws of the two sailors at this hoary old joke caused the
tourists at adjacent tables to look questioningly in their direction.
Working through the dinner from soup to fruit, the two skippers passed
a jovial couple of hours, and when the punch came along, Judson filled
his glass. "Here's to you, old son," he said. "Twenty-one years of age
an' master of a vessel. Not too bad, boy! Not too bad! Here's hoping
that the next time I drink your health it will be at your wedding.
Salut!" McKenzie acknowledged the toast with a smile. "And you, Jud?
Here's hoping I'll have a similar pleasure, and I hope it will be
soon. Bye-the-way, have you heard from Helena this time?"
The other reddened a little under his tan. "Yes, I got a note from her
at Matanzas," he said slowly, and then he added, "You know, we
seafarin' men are at a disadvantage. These pretty and popular girls
have a swarm of shore-hawks dancin' araound them all th' time, while
we poor devils only get an evening with them two or three times a
year. Helena has a bunch of admirers in Halifax--there was two fellers
visitin' her the last time I went to call on her--an' darned if I
could get a word in edgewise. They gushed about hockey matches,
dances, teas and theayters, an' I had to sit an' listen to their bunk
an' amuse myself tryin' to figure aout th' price of fish, until I sat
the blighters aout an' got a few minutes alone with her 'bout
midnight. Durned if I know whether she likes me or not."
Donald sighed sympathetically. His experiences were of a similar
nature. He, too, had dallied precious hours waiting rare minutes of
tête-à-tête with Ruth, but four years of persistent wooing seemed to
have been rather futile, and he was in a state of maddening
uncertainty as to his standing with the girl of his desire. He never
talked to Judson about his fondness for Ruth, and the latter never
mentioned the subject to him. Oftentimes he wished he could make a
confidant of the brother, but as the other had never broached the
subject, Donald hesitated to open it with him. From Jud, however, he
got scraps of news, but they were not calculated to make him happy.
"Th' nut was daown home, I h'ard," or "Ruth spent th' holiday with th'
Moodeys," was the general drift of his informative remarks and they
made McKenzie writhe inwardly.
Ruth wrote him often, but they were merely friendly letters,
commencing "Dear Donald," and ending with "yours sincerely." Donald
took his cue from these, and no matter how much he hungered to
subscribe himself as "yours affectionately," or "yours lovingly," he
had to wait for time and opportunity to earn the right, and time and
opportunity in a sailor's wooing, is long acoming. Evidently Judson
was in the same box, but Judson was in a better situation than
McKenzie. Nickerson had money saved and could afford to keep a wife
and a comfortable home; Donald had his mother to support and had
nothing but a couple of hundred dollars to windward of him. Give him
two years as skipper of a fishing vessel and he might, with luck,
scratch up enough to keep a home with a wife and his mother, but when
he thought of Ruth as the wife, the prospects looked black. Moodey
paid her a great deal of attention; Moodey's people had money, and he,
himself, had secured his LL.B., and was now a junior member of his
father's law firm. Walter was away with a flying start on the road to
success; McKenzie was but a common vessel fisherman, and skipper for a
West Indian voyage, of a small schooner carrying dried fish.
They finished dinner and strolled down through the palms of the Prado
to the Miramar on the Malecon or marine promenade. It was a glorious
evening, and the cool sea breeze was coming in from the Gulf of
Mexico with the setting of the sun, while a regimental band was
playing for the entertainment of the Cubans and Americans who lounged
around on the seats, or strolled leisurely along the sea-wall.
"Let's sit down here and watch the sun set," suggested Donald, leading
the way to a seat. "My artistic eye is taken by the view from here.
Isn't it glorious? I must invest in a pad of paper and a box of
water-colors and do some sketching. I've got a chance now."
The sea stretched like a huge mirror of ruddy gold before them, and
the sun was going down behind the placid Gulf a huge red ball already
eclipsed by the horizon. The windows of the residences on the Malecon
gleamed as though a furnace flamed within their walls, and the rocks
of old Morro's headland stood out like rough cast copper in the glow.
The light-house tower, the ponderous masonry of Morro Fort and of
Cabanas behind, stood placidly reflected in the fading light--calm and
hoary as with the dignity of age, and when one gazed upon their rugged
walls and heard the rag-time strains of the American band, a strange
sense of incongruity took possession of the soul. Here, embodied in
those massy bastions, was history--monumental testimony to the glory
of old Spain, of the Conquistadores, of buccaneers and sea-rovers, of
Columbus, Drake, Morgan and the hosts of reckless seafaring
adventurers who had made these waters their cruising ground. From
here, De Soto--the Bayard of Spanish chivalry--journeyed to Florida to
seek a new El Dorado greater than Mexico or Peru, and left his noble
wife, Isabella d'Avila, to hold La Fuerza as Regent of Cuba until his
return. For five years she waited for her husband's coming and kept
the prowling sea wolves away from the treasures collected yearly in
her stronghold for shipment to Spain. Then came the news of her
husband's death and burial in the turgid waters of the great river
which he discovered--the Mississippi--and she surrendered her post to
join him three days after the ill news was brought to her.
And in the brave days of old what sights old Morro saw! Slave-ships
gliding in from the Guinea Coast, with the sea breeze behind and their
ghastly freights below; privateers, adventurers, pirates and simple
merchantmen! Plate ships from Panama with the treasures of the Incas
in their holds, and galleons and carracks from Vera Cruz, with a
lading of the silver of Mexico, slipped in and out of this storied
harbor--_Llave del Nuevo Mundo_--as the Spaniards called it--"The Key
to the New World!"
As he mused on these things, McKenzie thought of the prosaic age he
lived in and the change wrought by the years. The dark and narrow
streets with their grilled windows through which dusky _senoritas_ in
days long gone, watched the passers-by or flirted with _caballero_ and
_hidalgo_ of Spain, were aglare with electric lights, and the
streetcars gonged their noisy way down the stone-paved _calles_; the
_avenidas_ were thronged, not with promenaders in _sombreros_, black
coats, and lace _mantillas_, but with smartly dressed men and women
who spoke Spanish with an American accent, or English with a Spanish
accent; with peddlers selling cheap cigars and cigarettes, and
newsboys yelling "_El Diario!_" ... "_El Mundo!_" ... "Havana Post!"
and "New York American!" and soliciting bilingually with easy
transition from Spanish to English, and above the hum of conversation
and street noises, blared the American band, playing, not the dreamy
airs of far-off Castille, which Old Havana knew in thrumming guitars,
but the latest Broadway "rag-time" or march of Sousa. And he,
McKenzie, how had he come to storied Havana? Not in galleon, carrack,
privateersman or slaver brig, but in a little Nova Scotia soft-wood
schooner, with a load of dry salted cod-fish!
He sighed and came to a mental conclusion. Romance was in the past. It
did not belong to the present; it was always in the past, and memory
was like unto a skilful painter who touched up the drab canvases of
reality with the colors of glamor long after the picture was made!
The sun had vanished behind the quiet sea and the stars had swarmed
into the velvety azure of the firmament upon the heels of the master
orb, whose after-glow still flamed above the western horizon. A
fishing vessel crept in from the Keys on the breath of the soft
north-east trade wind and her crew were chanteying an old Biscayan
chorus, while a big steamer ablaze with lights forged out with
passengers and cargo on schedule time, to connect with the trains at
Key West, ninety miles away. Donald drank in the beauties of the
night, and remarked to his companion, "This Cuba is a beautiful
country, Jud, and I could sit for hours just dreaming and looking on
this sort of thing. Look at those palms with their feathery fronds;
that sunset! Oh, to be a master painter or a poet that I might dilate
upon the things I see!"
"Yes, it's very fine," grudgingly admitted Judson, "but I don't know
as it can beat daown home for scenery. These tropical countries have
lots of color in them--the flowers are gaudy and the palms and herbage
are very green, but look how coarse they are. Then again, these places
are all hell-holes for heat. You sweat all the time, and you're
pestered with flies and bugs of every variety. No, siree, I prefer
Nova Scotia. I've bin all over th' world, and I think Eastville has
them all skinned for looks an' climate. When a mosquito bites you
Down-east you don't die of yellow jack like you used to in these
ports. This here Havana, until the Yankees cleaned it and drained it,
used to be a sailor's grave-yard." He paused and lit up a cigar. "Tell
me, now that you're twenty-one an' skipper of a hooker, tell me, what
you think of a seafaring life now? You came aboard that _Kelvinhaugh_
full up to the back teeth with the romance and adventure of it, but
have you found it? Do you really like the life?" And he looked
quizzically at McKenzie through the cigar smoke.
The other stared for a while at the ruddy glow of the sunset to the
westward, and answered slowly, "Have I found romance and adventure in
a sea life? I'll answer that in a peculiar way. On the _Kelvinhaugh_
my ideals were shattered and I hated it all, and I was glad to run
away from her in Vancouver. On the voyage to Halifax in the _Starbuck_
I was indifferent. It was intensely monotonous and the adventurous
spells were only occasional, like the time we ran the easting down
the Horn. But, now, when I look back on these voyages, it gives me a
thrill and I see the adventure and romance of them, but it is only by
recollection, and not in the actual experience, that I appreciate
these things. But in the fisheries, I have found the true and
ever-present fascination of seafaring. We're taking something out of
the ocean in that game; we're dodging the wind and weather with only
one objective--that of getting fish. We don't know what we're going to
get. It's a gamble, pure and simple, but there is a glamor and hazard
in wresting the spoils of the deep from the deep, which does not exist
in the other branches of seafaring, where one is paid a wage to sail a
vessel from one port to another and keep her in good condition while
on the journey. In fishing, we are in closer intimacy with the ocean
and all its moods. We brave it in small, but able vessels with men
whom we work with as partners, and we work _in_ it, rather than _on_
it. We know it as the merchant seaman cannot know it, for we know the
floor of the ocean, while the other seamen only see the surface. To
them, the sea is a waste of salt water. To us it is an element which
we regard as an opaque mass which hides that which we seek and we are
forever penetrating its secrets. We know the currents below; we know
the depth of water on our Banks; we know what the bottom is
like--rocks, gravel, mud or sand, and we try to figure out the
migrations of the fish which travel over these bottoms in the gloom of
the light-defying fathoms. We lay our lines over the sea floor always
hopefully and we're always looking forward to a catch. When the fish
are striking it is dollars in our pockets and we're robbing old
ocean's horde; when they're not striking, we look forward
optimistically to another day's looting. Monotony, the drawback in
seafaring, has thus no place in fishing. We are keener observers of
the weather and thus become closer students of natural phenomena; we
work hard, but we live well and sleep in comfortable quarters; we sail
in craft of yacht-like build, and we enjoy the sport of sailing as no
yachtsman can; and best of all, we are free and independent men banded
together for a common purpose and obeying our leader without force or
coercion. Seafaring under those conditions appeals to me. I am
content. I desire no other vocation for gaining a livelihood, for it
gives me money for my material needs, and enough of adventure, romance
and the element of chance to satisfy my mind and soul. So there you
have it."
Nickerson smiled. "You've expressed it pretty well," he remarked,
"and I cal'late you've recorded my ideas on the subject also. We
fishermen are the true Sea Kings. Your merchantman is only a ship
laborer--nothing more and nothing less. I learnt that, and I went back
to the fishing. The merchant seaman looks upon us with contempt; the
landsman, with pity for our hard lot, and we laugh at the both of
them. They are fools! They don't know--they can't know, for we are a
fraternity--a lodge intricate and hard for the stranger to enter, for
our initiation is difficult and not easily acquired. We are the finest
sailors afloat, and we harvest Neptune's pastures when his watch-dog,
Boreas, sleeps. When we want a change, we come droghing fish and deals
to the Indies or the Brazils and live in perpetual summer."
Donald laughed. "Judson, you are developing a wonderful faculty for
moralizing. I like your phrase 'we harvest Neptune's pastures when his
watch-dog Boreas sleeps!' That's a motto for a fisherman. It should be
painted on the wheel-box like the 'Don't give up the ship's' and
'England expects,' which they carve in the poop-breaks of British and
American men-o-war."
McKenzie accompanied his old ship-mate to the station, where he took
train for Matanzas again. "So long, Donny-boy," cried Judson as they
pulled out. "I'll see you in Eastville unless our courses cross. I'm
loading molasses an' I'll be getting away in a day or so. I'll tell
your mother I saw you here an' helped you to celebrate your
twenty-first birthday--"
"You'll tell my mother will you?" shouted the other with a grin. "Not
if the _Alameda_ has a rag of canvas on her. I'll be home a fortnight
before your old square-rig hooker sights Cape Sable."
Early next morning the _Alameda_ slipped out of Havana and ran
south-east down the Cuban coast to the Turks or Caicos Islands--there
to load a cargo of salt for fishery use. At Salt Cay, they came to an
anchor and filled up the schooner's hold with a cargo of the
evaporated sea-water salt, which is the principal manufacture of the
inhabitants of these easterly atolls of the Bahama group. When a full
lading of the saline crystals was secured, the crew of six hands
hoisted sails and anchor and with the steady trades filling their
canvas they bowled off for Eastville and home.
"I'd like to make a fast run up," said McKenzie to McGlashan. "It has
been done in seven days, but I don't think this old hooker can stand
the driving and travel like those new model Lunenburg vessels.
However, we'll try her."
With the Bahama current behind them and the steady north-east trade
blowing strong, the _Alameda_ showed her heels and ploughed through
the deep blue of the tropical sea at a ten-knot clip. McKenzie paced
the quarter, luxuriating in the bright sunshine and watching the
flying-fish, which every now and again skittered up from the sapphire
water as the on-rushing schooner drove upon them. Blue skies and bluer
seas; water that boiled and hissed like champagne in the furrows of
the vessel's passage, and foam that gleamed snow-white against the
deep colors of the Main; flashes of low sandy islets with graceful
tufted palms leaning to loo'ard as the constant trade wind rudely
swayed them.... Truly, these were enchanting seas! Little wonder, he
mused, that the old sea-dogs of northern climes sought these waters
and plied their nefarious occupations until Port Royal gallows and
cruising frigates made the "trade" no longer safe or profitable. Aye,
aye, no wonder the old buccaneer would lament the pleasant times in
pleasant weather in--
"The pleasant Isle of Aves,
Beside the Spanish Main."
For five days they ran thus and McKenzie lazied the hours
away--reading and basking in genial sunshine and taking three sextant
squints daily to fix the schooner's position. Then they crossed the
Gulf Stream and the chill breath of February struck them just as
suddenly as the sea changed from blue to green at the fringes of the
great current. Off came the light clothing of summer weather, and on
went the heavy underwear, sweaters, sea-boots, mittens and caps of
frigid seafaring, and a fire was kindled in the cabin stove to
unlimber stiffened fingers and toes.
On February 20th, they made to the eastward of Brown's Bank, and the
fair wind which had hurried them along, flickered away and left them
rolling, with slatting sails and banging booms, in a heavy swell from
the S.E. The sky was solid with stratas of leaden cloud, which ran in
layers from nadir to zenith, and the air was chill and cold. McKenzie
studied the barometer anxiously--tapping the glass every reading to
flog the forecasts of the instrument, which was steadily going down.
Archie Surrette--an old fisherman--read the signs. "We're agoin' to
git some dirt, Skipper," he remarked. "Awful pink sunrise this mornin'
and there ain't no gulls araound. This swell comin' up from th'
south-east ... a south-easter, sure."
McKenzie laughed. "That's a fair wind for home, Archie," he said.
"Better get her snugged down though. Call the boys and we'll get the
jib in the tricing jacket and the mains'l reefed before it hits us."
At noon, the glass had dropped to 29-5 and still going down. A misty
rain began to fall, and within half an hour of its coming, the wind
came in a squall from the southeast which drove the _Alameda_ down to
her rail with the violence of its initial onslaught. When it eased off
and the schooner was tearing along towards the Nova Scotia coast,
McKenzie ran below to squint at the barometer. "Dropped another
tenth," he muttered anxiously. He laid a chart out on the locker and
with the dividers commenced measuring the distance from the vessel's
present position to the nearest harbor. For a minute he sat thinking,
and then he rolled up the sea map and threw it into his bunk. "Can't
make it," he muttered. "This blow will be on us full force within an
hour, and we'd be safer offshore than running in on the land in a
gale of wind and snow."
Buttoning up his oilskins, he pulled on his mittens and went on deck.
Though it was shortly after noon, the sky was dark and the rain was
coming down in sheets, and the wind was blowing in gusts which
careened the vessel to her rails as they struck the canvas.
Taking the wheel, he spoke to the helmsman. "Go for'ard Jim, an' call
the boys. Tell the cook to oil up and come on deck. We'll get the
mains'l off her." And the man scrambled forward to do his bidding with
feelings of relief. When the big mainsail is down, fishermen feel that
they are in trim for anything.
Taking in the mainsail with a full gang of fishermen, and taking it
in, in squally winter weather, with only six men to subdue the
thrashing canvas, are two different propositions. When the men
mustered aft, McKenzie gave his orders. "Joak will lower away on the
peak, and Jim will lower away the throat when I sing out. You, Archie,
will ship the crotch and hook in the tackles when Wesley lowers away
on the topping lift. Ainslie will stand by the gaff down-haul, and
I'll look after the wheel. We'll get the mainsheet in first. Are you
ready?"
It was blowing harder every minute, and the schooner, by the wind, was
plunging and rearing in an ugly cross sea kicked up by the shifting of
the squalls to the eastward. The rain was turning into sleet, which
cut the skin and numbed the hands with its bitterness and velocity,
and which adhered to the gear and froze in the lowering temperature.
Donald watched his chance, and in the wake of a violent blast, he
rolled the wheel down easily and roared, "Helm's a lee! Mainsheet!"
For five minutes, the _Alameda's_ quarter was a scene of frenzied
action. As the vessel came up, the mainsheet was yanked in by all
hands, and then the men ran to the stations. As the schooner rounded
into the wind, sails slatting and sheet blocks banging and jangling,
McKenzie slipped the wheel in the becket, and held the crotch plank
while Surrette hooked the crotch tackle into the ring bolts and hove
it taut. The big sixty-foot boom was now amidships, and when it
steadied above the crotch, McKenzie roared, "Lower away y'r lift!" And
when Wesley Sanders slacked off on the tackle fall, the boom dropped
on to the crotch notch; port and starboard crotch tackles already
hooked in were hauled taut and belayed, and the order came, "Settle
away yer halliards!"
The schooner, plunging and rearing, bows-on to the seas, was
threatening to fall off with the wind in foresail and jumbo. "Let yer
halliards go by the run!" shouted the skipper, springing to assist the
two men tugging at the gaff-downhaul. "And bear a hand here you other
fellows!" Joak and Jim at the pin-rail let the halliards go
and scrambled aft to lend their strength and beef at the
downhaul--wrenching and jerking with the vicious slats of the bellying
mainsail, which, half way down the mast, was prevented from coming
down further by the wind which filled the canvas.
As all hands struggled with the hauling down rope, a big sea rose
above the quarter, roaring with a white-capped crest and curling ready
to break. McKenzie saw it. "Belay yer downhaul," he yelled, "and hang
on!" The words were hardly out of his mouth before it broke aboard.
The schooner rolled down to its impact, and the men hanging on to the
downhaul were enveloped in solid green and washed over the main-boom
and into the belly of the mainsail, which, with the force and weight
of the water in it, was driven over the low rail and into the sea.
Struggling for foot-hold on the slippery canvas and totally submerged
in water as the schooner rolled to leeward, McKenzie and the four men
with him would have been drowned had not Surrette, who had hung on to
the crotch-tackles when the sea struck, jumped up on the cabin house
and thrown a rope down to the yelling, oilskinned humans struggling
and clawing to get out of the deadly water-filled sail.
As soon as he recovered his breath, McKenzie, with no time to thank
Providence for his escape, or to contemplate the horrors of those
suffocating minutes over-side, sprung to the wheel and swung the
vessel off before the wind. "Get the fore-boom tackle hooked in," he
gasped. "I'll jibe her and get that mains'l inboard!" As he rolled the
wheel over, the _Alameda_ slowly payed off. "Watch yerselves when she
comes-to!" he cried in warning, and he stared anxiously at the little
knot of men standing amidships by the fore-sheet. The wind was blowing
with gale force by now and the sea was running in roaring combers, and
the air was white with spray and sleet. For a minute the schooner
raced over the waves with the wind aft, and on the declivity of a huge
crest, Donald rolled the helm up and the foresail came sweeping over
like the flick of a whip--fetching up on the jibing-tackle with such
force as to snap the strong iron shackle of the block and to bend the
stout boom like a bow. The fore-sheet held, however, and as the
schooner came to the wind on the other tack, the men leaped into the
main-rigging just as another sea boarded her amidships, and wrenching
the staysail-box from off the booby-hatch, carried it over the rail.
McKenzie gave a grim smile. "Heneker won't be pleased with this day's
work," he murmured. "And this is only the beginning." By this time,
the mainsail had collapsed and the men were down from the rigging and
tugging on the wet canvas. "Ef that there downhaul had parted while
you fellers were in the belly o' that mains'l overside, I cal'late
ye'd ha' bin in Heaven 'r Hell by this time!" observed Surrette. And
the others grinned and thought no more about it.
Hove-to under foresail and jumbo and with the wheel lashed, McKenzie
and his five men tugged and hauled the heavy wet mainsail aboard. Then
commenced the big job of furling it--a herculean task, at which every
man had to exert all the strength that was in him to roll the sodden,
frozen canvas up and on to the boom. As he pulled and jerked and
hefted the weighty roll of canvas on his back in order that the stops
could be passed, Donald thought of similar tasks "down under" off the
pitch of the Horn in the _Kelvinhaugh_. No need to go to fifty-five
south for strenuous seafaring, he thought. It could be experienced in
all its terrors right off the Nova Scotia coast in wintertime, and
this was a sample of it.
It took them an hour to get the mainsail stowed, and when it was done,
Joak staggered away to his galley--cursing the folly that made a cook
a sailor. "A cook aye gets the worst of it," he growled to himself.
"They never want ye on deck but when it's blawin' a ruddy gale, and
then ye get it butt-end first. I wisht I was back in a guid steamer's
galley whaur ye have nane o' this murderin' deck wurrk!" Joak was a
true sea-cook, however, and in spite of the awful rolling and tumbling
of the vessel, he had his oilskins off, his apron on, and good meal
under way--gale or no gale. And the chilled and hungry humans of the
_Alameda_ wolfed his hot concoctions and blessed him wholeheartedly.
Throughout the short winter afternoon, they rode the gale under
foresail and jumbo, with the wheel lashed and two men on deck to keep
a watch. The wind was steadily increasing, and blowing in such
terrific squalls from the N.N.E. that the schooner would be pressed
lee-rail under during their violence. At tea-time, they stowed the
jumbo to make the vessel lie easier, and McKenzie noted by the still
falling barometer that the worst was yet to come.
With the darkness came conditions bad enough to frighten capable
seamen. A terrible sea--stupendous in the height of the waves and the
whitewater which crowned them--raced roaring through the livid night
and tossed the schooner about like a cork. The wind, at times, blew in
such terrific squalls as to heel the vessel down until half her deck
was submerged and the watch had to hang, limpetlike, to the gear to
avoid being blown overboard. Nothing born of woman could look to
windward in those blasts, and the air was so full of spray as to fill
the mouth with salt saliva in the breathing of it. The side-lights
could not be kept alight, and a kerosene torch, which they had lit and
placed inside a dory to shine against the foresail, was repeatedly
doused by the sprays which drenched the schooner. "You'll just have to
keep torches handy inside the cabin gang-way to show a light in case
another vessel's bearing down," said Donald, after an attempt to keep
a riding-light lit on the peak halliards failed. Lightless, they
plunged and rolled and prayed that the _Alameda_ would cross no
liner's path that night.
At midnight the glass was down to 28.6 and pumping in rapid jerks, and
McKenzie called Surrette's attention to it. "Did you ever see that
before, Archie?" he asked, hanging on to a weather bunk partition to
save himself from sliding to leeward. The fisherman stared at the
barometer, bit off a chew, and grinned. "Look's if th' gaul-derned
thing was agoin' to jibe, Skipper!" he remarked, and Donald laughed at
the simile. The quivering of the needle suggested the premonitory
symptoms of a sail about to swing over. He sat down on the cabin
floor--it was impossible to stand or sit comfortably--and filled a
pipe of tobacco. He had just taken a couple of puffs when the cabin
slide was shoved back and Wesley shouted, "Gittin' worse, Skipper, and
snow's thicker'n ever. Thought I h'ard a steamer blowin'--"
McKenzie was on his feet and up the steps in a trice. Clutching the
spokes of the lashed wheel he listened with straining ears, and amidst
the howl of the wind and the thunder of the sea he heard a regular
note which betokened the blast of a steamer's whistle. "Call the
crowd, Wesley, and tell Jim to light the torches in the gangway--" He
had barely shouted the words when the faint mast-head light of a large
steamer blinked in the blackness to windward. A flicker of red and
green showed below and McKenzie knew that the vessel was heading right
square for them. Casting off the wheel lashing, he almost screamed,
"Stand by yer fore-sheet! We'll have to swing off!"
With fearful recollections of the _Livadia_ accident in his mind, he
watched the nearing lights and spoked the wheel over. Someone was
easing off the sheet of the foresail and the vessel was swinging off.
Then she gathered way and slipped out from under the roaring bows of
the monster driving through the night. It was a big ship--a liner of
ten or fifteen thousand tons--and she towered above them as she forged
past, bellowing stentorously and rolling ponderously. The black smoke
from her belching funnels whirled pungent and bituminous to McKenzie's
nostrils as she vanished into the blackness--a memory of rows of
blazing port-holes and swinging fabric.
The _Alameda_ tore through the dark with a huge wave chasing her
astern, and waiting but a faltering hand at the wheel to overwhelm and
destroy the gallant little craft. McKenzie was a master helmsman,
however, and when the steamer passed, he shouted to Surrette beside
him, "We'll come-to again. Go for'ad and tell the boys to sheet in the
fores'l when I put the wheel down!" Watching his chance in a smooth
between two seas, he gave a shout and eased the spokes over while the
crew amidships tugged the boom inboard and belayed. The steamer was
but an incident--a common hazard nevertheless on the Banks--and they
were hove-to once more.