Hollis was certainly driving her now. He ought to have felt safe in
doing so with the Lucy Foster to go by, for the Lucy, by reason of the
ballast taken out of her, should, everything else being equal, capsize
before the Withrow.
Hollis must have had that in mind, for he followed Wesley Marrs's
every move. Wesley was sailing her wide. And our skipper approved of
that, too. To attempt a too close course in the sea that was out in
the Bay that day, with the blasts of wind that were sweeping down,
would have deadened her way altogether too much--maybe hung her up.
And so it was "Keep her a full whatever you do," and that, with coming
about when the others did--we being afraid to split tacks--made plenty
of work for us.
"Hard-a-lee" it was one after the other, and for every "Hard-a-lee"
twenty of us went down into the roaring sea fore and aft and hauled in
and slackened away sheets, while aloft, the fellows lashed to the
foremast head shifted top and staysail tacks. They were wise to lash
themselves up aloft, for with every tack, she rolled down into it as
if she were never coming up, and when she did come up shook herself as
if she would snap her topmasts off.
Half way to Eastern Point on the beat home it seemed to occur to the
skipper and to Clancy that the Johnnie Duncan stood a chance to win
the race. It was Clancy, still lashed to the wheel, now with Long
Steve, turned his head for just a second to Mr. Duncan and spoke the
first word of it.
"Mr. Duncan, do you know, but the Johnnie's got a chance to win this
race?"
"D'y'think so, Tommie--d'y'think so?"
Some of us in the crew had been thinking of that same thing some time,
and we watched Mr. Duncan, who, with a life line about him, was
clinging to a bitt aft, and watching things with tight lips, a drawn
face and shiny eyes. We listened to hear what else he might have to
say. But he didn't realize at once what it meant. His eyes and his
mind were on the Lucy Foster.
"What d'y'think of the Lucy and the Withrow, Tommie?" Mr. Duncan said
next.
Tommie took a fresh look at the Lucy Foster, which was certainly doing
stunts. It was along this time that big Jim Murch--a tall man, but
even so, he was no more than six feet four, and the Lucy twenty-four
feet beam--was swinging from the ring-bolts under the windward rail
and throwing his feet out trying to touch with his heels the sea that
was swashing up on the Lucy's deck. And every once in a while he did
touch, for the Lucy, feeling the need of her ballast, was making
pretty heavy weather of it. Every time she rolled and her sheer poles
went under, Jim would holler out that he'd touched again.
We could hear him over on the Johnnie at times. Mr. Duncan, who
believed that nothing ever built could beat the Lucy Foster, began to
worry at that, and again he spoke to Clancy. He had to holler to make
himself heard.
"But what do you think of the Lucy's chances, Tommie?"
Clancy shook his head.
And getting nothing out of Clancy, Mr. Duncan called out then: "What
do you think of the Lucy, you, Captain Blake?"