OFF THE HORN
_Wednesday, 11th October._--A good blow, and a big beam sea. We are
logging 10 knots, and rolling both rails under; for the first time,
we have been getting the water in the half-deck, which is truly in a
miserable state, as about half a foot of water pours backwards and
forwards across it as the ship rolls.
She is rolling so badly, that one has to brace oneself firmly against
something fixed whilst eating, and anything that is not well jammed off
or lashed, carries away, and either gets smashed up or forms one of
the heap of sodden, wretched objects which wash ceaselessly across the
floor.
We now live in oilskins and rubbers, and only take them off to get
into our bunks. I had two big seas over me to-day, but I hung on and
faced them, so that they failed to wash me away, and my oilskins and
rubbers being well lashed, kept me pretty dry. One of the golden rules
in bad weather is, Never run away from a sea. Catch hold of whatever
is nearest, and hang on for all you are worth; for if a sea catches
you and you have not got firm hold of something, you stand a very good
chance of being washed overboard. Even if this does not happen, you
are washed into the lee scuppers and get badly bruised and cut about,
besides being nearly drowned into the bargain. A real big sea of course
you cannot hang on against, so great is the weight of water, and you
have to go whither the sea wishes you to.
Whole watches have been washed overboard off the Horn, whilst trying to
get a pull on the braces, which is a most dangerous business in real
bad weather.
The old man is carrying on like anything; but in the afternoon watch
the gaff-topsail, staysails, and mizen-royal had to come in, and in
the first watch we took in the main and fore royals to ease the weight
aloft. Lat. 49°.28 S., long. 104°.38 W.
_Thursday, 12th October._--The wind hauled ahead last night, and we
had hard work bracing up. The port watch had a rare bad time in the
middle watch, and whilst at the fore-braces were all washed away--Scar,
Frenchie, and Don getting jammed underneath the spare spars, whilst
Jackson and Webber were floated right aft as far as the main-hatch.
The wind is lighter this morning, and we have set the royals again, and
the ship is ever so much steadier with the wind ahead, though the sea
is still very heavy.
Jamieson has finished his mat for the “deck-bear,” and this afternoon
we started work with it.
The bear is a square box, filled with stones to weight it, and on to
its bottom is nailed the mat; it has a couple of short ropes made fast
to it on each side, and with one man on to the end of each rope, we
have first to haul one way, and then the other two on the other side
haul it back again. Backwards and forwards it goes without a stop, some
sand being sprinkled over the deck on which it is pulled. You have to
keep at the same bit of deck until its whiteness passes the mate’s
inspection, and he tells you to move on.
Of course it is splendid for the muscles of the back and arms, but on
board a wind-jammer one’s muscles get all they want without an infernal
slave-driving deck-bear to wear them out.
It is the hardest work on the back I have come across yet, and the
rolling of the ship does not improve matters; Loring, Jennings, Bower,
and myself are its victims in our watch, the second mate and Mac
watching us, and occasionally giving a helping hand to one side or the
other.
By eight bells we were all completely cooked, hardened and in rare
training as we were, I know that I just threw myself into my bunk in
the first dog watch, and lay there dead-beat for nearly an hour.
But presently I was tumbled clean out by a terrific roll, and on
looking out found that the wind had hauled right aft again, making the
_Royalshire_ roll in the heavy sea until the deck was like the side of
a house.
Lat. 50°.35 S., long. 99°.35 W.
In the second dog watch a sea caught me and tossed me like a feather
into the lee scuppers, where I brought up a terrific bang, cutting my
knee open on the port main bits.
_Friday, 13th October._--The log was hove at seven bells in the
forenoon watch, and marked 12 knots, and it was as much as I could do
to haul the line in again.
All the morning we have been at that terrible bear. Yesterday we had
started on the deck to windward by the after-hatch, but as a continual
succession of dollops kept coming aboard just there, knocking us down
and interrupting the work, the second mate told us to work forward by
the fore-hatch, where the sea did not come aboard quite so often.
Even here it was exciting enough. All of a sudden a big wave would be
seen approaching, which looked like coming aboard where we were; then
there would be a rush, the bear would be left, and we would jump for
safety on to the main fife-rail or the fore-hatch, then crash would
come the great weight of water on the deck where a moment before we
had been working, washing the wretched old bear before it into the lee
scuppers.
The big dollops were not the bother, however, it was the small ones
which were annoying and at the same time amusing.
Pop! one would put its head over the rail and fall on two of us, to the
amusement of the other two, who would sooner or later be caught napping
in their turn, or again it would come with a rush through the port
almost sweeping us off our legs.
The sand had to be given up, as it was washed off the deck faster than
it could be put down.
Loring was very unlucky, a big dollop bowling him over and thoroughly
soaking him notwithstanding his oilskins! The second mate having
compassion on him as he shivered with cold, sent him aft to get a
change and took his place for a few minutes; in those few minutes the
second mate got caught and soaked.
Poor Loring, though on his way forward in dry things once more, got
caught by a big sea, as he was going past the galley; though he made a
jump for the skids, on which the quarter boat rested, and tried to haul
himself up, he was too late and was again soaked to the skin, as he had
no lashings on his oilskins.
This time he had to stay wet, as his wardrobe was scanty, and he had no
more dry clothes.
The sea and wind began to get worse as darkness set in, and we had a
hard night of it. Royals came in first, then upper-topgallant sails,
after which all hands were called.
The mainsail and crossjack were now hauled up and made fast, followed
by the fore and mizen topgallant sails.
Notwithstanding the cold, the discomfort, the wet, the man-killing work
in the pitch darkness, and the washing about the decks, I thoroughly
enjoy it all. One is stirred up by the danger; one works like a fury,
whether up aloft getting in sail or on deck up to your middle in water,
occasionally even hanging on for dear life until you think your lungs
will burst, so long is the water in clearing off.
Though the older men, like poor old Higgins and some of the dagos in
the port watch, are almost useless from fatigue, cold, and fright, I
never felt fitter in my life, and Loring, who came on board as weak as
a rat from fever, is fast putting on flesh; it is the same with the
second mate and Mac, who are both as frisky as young lambs.
It is wonderful, too, how used one gets to being knocked down and
floated about the deck in a half-drowned, half-stunned condition. Every
accident, however dangerous, is always treated as a joke on board ship;
the laugh goes round as half the watch crawl out of the lee scuppers
like yellow rats, dazed, bruised, and panting for breath.
Orders are given sharply, and those who are the keenest sailors jump
to the front in everything; up aloft the Britishers and Dutchmen do
herculean work, whilst the dagos hang on, quite useless and scared,
with all their tropical liveliness taken out of them!
It is blowing now with a vengeance, and if we were going into it, we
would be under lower topsails and hove-to. The seas are pouring in a
cascade over the weather bulwarks and back again over the lee bulwarks
as she rolls, and the main-deck is a boiling, seething maelstrom of
water, under which the hatches are constantly hidden. The two men at
the wheel are working like blacks, as the ship is very unsteady, and
swings a couple of points on each side of her course.
About four bells in the first watch the cook was washed out of his
galley, and his pots and pans rattled about his head. The water is
knee-deep in the half-deck, and Loring and I are expecting any moment
to be washed out of our bunks, which are the lower ones. We are afraid
that the doors will be broken in by the seas; if they go, we shall
be in a nice mess, as the half-deck will be filled up “two blocks,”
everything will be washed out, and we inside will be lucky if we are
not drowned.
Last passage, even with the doors tight shut, one night the half-deck
filled up, and Mac, who had got his present top bunk, found himself
floated off and nearly drowned, as he could not get his head above
water.
As I lie in my bunk I watch the flood of water washing backwards and
forwards by the dim light of the turned-down lamp. On deck there is
the ceaseless crash of seas falling aboard, and then the rushing sound
as if of a roaring torrent; as the sea pours across the deck and comes
dashing aft; it fills up under the break of the poop, and then I hear
it gushing in through the ventilator of the door against my trusty
waterproof sheet.
“Shut that ventilator or we shall fill up,” growls Mac, half asleep.
Presently the door is opened and shut with a bang, and Don dashes
in, just in time, as a sea follows him close. He holds a couple of
binnacles in his hands, and proceeds to try and light them as quickly
as possible with damp matches.
“Anything going on outside,” I ask.
“Nothing much; seas getting bigger though, and Pedro’s been turned away
from the wheel; it’s cold as the Klondyke, and I’m as hungry as a
hunter.”
Saying which, he takes two or three bites out of a biscuit, and then,
watching his chance, dashes on deck again.
I fall asleep then with the everlasting crash of the sea in my ears,
only to be aroused as I suppose five seconds later by Don calling out,
“Now then, starbowlines ahoy, tumble out! One bell’s just gone, it’ll
take you all your time to get your sea lashings on by eight bells, and
there’s lots to do.”
Loring and I immediately start to struggle into our rubbers. I know
nothing more trying to the temper than getting a pair of wet rubbers on
over wet socks in semi-darkness, half asleep, and shivering with wet
and cold, the ship all the time rolling and pitching so violently that
you cannot possibly keep your balance even sitting in your bunk.
Meanwhile, as Loring and I hurriedly lash our oilskins on, Don is
vainly attempting to wake Mac.
“Mac, one bell’s gone!” No response.
A tug at the blankets, and again,
“Mac, one bell’s gone!”
This time a good healthy shout, and into the slumbering man’s ear.
Still no response.
“Here Mac, out you get, five minutes to eight bells!”
At last Don gives up words as useless, then Loring and I each have a
try; no result. Then his blankets are pulled off him, his toes pinched,
his ears pulled; but the best remedy of all is to tweak his nose.
He sits up in his bunk at this last, and swears fluently at you for
nearly a minute, then if you let him, he will fall back again and in a
moment be fast asleep. It is quite fatal to let him lie down again once
he is sitting up in his bunk and trying to get his eyes open. Every
dodge to get him out have we played.
“Mac, it’s gone eight bells, and the second mate wants you; buck up,
old man, or he’ll be raising hell!”
This was effective for a while, but he got used to it, and refused to
budge; at last one day, however, he got caught.
At ten minutes to five in the morning the watch on deck get coffee,
which, if there is not much doing, they are given nearly half an
hour to consume. This half-hour Mac used to spend in sleep on one of
the chests. This time the second mate wanted to talk to him about
something, and sent me for him.
But not a bit of it, he would not stir. At last the second mate came
down, and between the pair of us we managed to get him on to his legs,
and when he came to his senses, Mr Knowles gave him a rare dressing
down.
One thing I will admit, he was easier to turn out in bad weather than
in fine, when it was one of the labours of Hercules to get him to stir.
He seemed to be in a kind of stupor, and though he might talk to you
and swear for some minutes before you really got him out, he would
not remember anything about it. He always used to go to sleep with a
lighted pipe in his mouth, and invariably woke up with it down his back.
_Saturday, 14th October._--Strong gale of wind and very big sea, a
regular Cape Horner, main-deck under water.
I took the lee wheel with Taylor from six to eight in the morning
watch, and how we worked! Taylor is a good helmsman, and has been in
the Royal Navy; but she swung a point and a half on each side of her
course, and sometimes more, and the wheel was spinning round the whole
time, hard up and hard down.
The second mate stood behind us on the watch, for on the helmsman the
ship and every life on board depends now.
Occasionally he says sharply,
“Meet her! Meet her!” and sometimes he jumps to the wheel and gives us
his powerful aid in grinding it up or down.
Great Cape Horn greybeards, with crests a mile and a half long, roar up
behind us, and at one moment you see a great green sea with a boiling
whirlpool of foam on its top, which looks as if it must poop you, and
wash you away from the helm; the next moment the gallant vessel has
lifted to it, and it roars past on either hand, breaking on to the
main-deck with a heavy crash and clanging of ports, then sweeping
forward in a mighty flood of raging, hissing, seething, icy-cold water.
The old sailors manage to get about and dodge the water on the
main-deck fairly well, though it is a queer sight to see an old
shellback going his best pace at a sort of shambling run on the
slippery, heaving deck. But poor old Higgins, Bower, and Jennings seem
quite helpless, and instead of making tracks along the weather side of
the deck, hesitate, and are lost; the sea catches them in the open and
away they go, and have to be rescued and picked out of the lee scuppers
half-drowned.
The steward, though still in his shirt sleeves--I have never yet seen
a steward in anything but his shirt sleeves, even in the coldest
weather--has put on hip rubbers, and has to exert all his cunning to
get the cabin dinner aft from the galley; we in the half-deck give him
our aid in fetching and carrying, in return for which he gives us a few
leavings from the cabin table.
He has to take everything over the poop and down through the
chart-house to the cabin, as his little square opening on the
main-deck, through which he usually passes his dishes, has to be shut
tight to keep the sea out.
A big sea came aboard this morning soon after eight bells, and filled
up under the break of the poop “two blocks,” so that the portholes in
the half-deck, which are 6 feet above the deck, were under water. It
burst in the door of the lamp-locker, and filled that up to the top.
In a moment, Don, who was inside busily engaged in cleaning his lamps,
was under water, with his lamps floating around him: perfect swimmer
as he was, with a locker full of trophies and cups, he was within an
ace of being drowned, for it was nearly two minutes before the water
cleared off sufficiently to allow him, by laying his head back, to get
his nose out of water and draw breath, notwithstanding a severe bumping
from the deck above.
It was my watch below, and we were just turning in, when Don staggered
into the half-deck, gasping and half-drowned, and lamenting his lamps,
which he had just cleaned.
Escapes of this kind on a sailing-ship in bad weather are quite common,
and thought nothing of, and we immediately started chaffing Don about
it.
Hard-tack was our only diet for breakfast this morning, as the galley
is all topsy-turvy, and half-full of water; the fresh-water pump also
could not be rigged in the first dog watch yesterday owing to the water
on deck, as we dare not risk getting any sea water into the tanks,
as it would spoil all the fresh water. So no hot liquid for tea last
night, and nothing hot to drink to-day, for two reasons, namely, in the
first place, the cook could not keep his fire alight, and in the second
place, there is no fresh water left.
Some ships have small stoves in their forecastles for use off the
Horn in cold weather, but there is no luxury of this kind on the
_Royalshire_, and as the galley fire is out, we cannot dry our wet
things, which we generally hang in the carpenter’s shop, which is
nicely heated as a rule, being next the galley.
Lat. 53°.23 S., long. 88°.58 W. Run 236 miles.
We came on deck this afternoon to find the wind moderating slightly,
but the sea if anything was worse.
It really is a magnificent sight: huge mountains of water with 10 feet
of foam on their crests rush after us as if they would devour us: like
great beasts of prey they rage round us, then flinging themselves upon
the straining, groaning _Royalshire_, they swarm all over her, and seem
as if they would rend her limb from limb.
It is glorious to watch a great sea break: as it curls over there is
a most beautiful deep-green colour in the very heart of the breaker, a
colour which I have only seen once before, and that is where the deep
water comes over in the centre of the “Horseshoe” at Niagara Falls.
Jamieson had the first trick at the wheel in the afternoon, and whilst
he was at the helm the ship was much drier, as he is a beautiful
helmsman--in fact, the old man says he is the best he has ever seen.
In weather like this the watch can do nothing but “stand-by,” the men
staying in the forecastle until wanted, whilst Mac, Loring and I have
to keep on the poop ready to summon the watch or do anything the second
mate may want, whilst the second mate himself stands ever on the watch
behind the toiling helmsman.
The old man is pretty continually on deck now, and with a keen eye to
windward, hangs on to his canvas.
At four bells it was Rooning’s wheel and old Higgins’ lee wheel.
Watching their time, they dashed along the main-deck, but just as they
were passing the after-hatch, a big sea tumbled aboard right on top of
them. Rooning hung on to the starboard mizen capstan like a limpet,
and, though the water passed completely over him, it failed to wash
him away. But poor old Higgins made a jump for the after-hatch; off
this he was rolled, and hurled into the lee scuppers, whence Mac and I
rescued him in a dazed condition.
It was bitterly cold, with the everlasting hail-storms at intervals, so
you may imagine Rooning and Higgins (both of whom were soaking wet) had
a pretty cold trick at the wheel.
During the night the watch on deck, who in fine weather always stayed
aft on the main-deck, had to come up on to the poop, where they tramped
up and down to leeward in a vain attempt to keep warm.
Of course this tramping goes on right over the heads of those asleep in
the half-deck. It does not affect our watch, who can all sleep through
any noise; but in the other watch, Don, Scar, and the nipper are all
very light sleepers, and in the middle watch, when I sneaked down into
the half-deck to light binnacles, I found them all three awake and
swearing fluently.
They told me to ask the second mate to stop it. I promised to do my
best, but informed them that the old man was the chief offender.
I managed to get the watch to walk further aft and more quietly, that
is, all except that surly brute Johnsen, who refused to budge. The old
man, however, continued his promenade to windward, and stamped strongly
to keep himself warm, and I chuckled to myself as I thought of the
terrific blasphemy that was being used on his behalf by those below.
_Sunday, 15th October._--Lat. 54°.46 S., long. 83°.08 W.
“Seven bells; buck up, Bally, and tumble out! It’s blowing harder than
ever, and there’s the very hell of a sea running!”
“Nice Sunday morning,” I growl to myself, as I crawl carefully out of
my sleeping-bag and prepare for the usual struggle with wet rubbers.
“I suppose you haven’t ordered breakfast yet?”
“No, what will you have?”
“Well, I think a fried sole to start on, with poached eggs and bacon,
sausages, and devilled kidneys to follow; and mind you tell the cook
that I must have my toast crisp.”
“That all; and what will you have, Mac?”
“As many kippered herrings as you can pack along.”
“And you, Loring?”
“Order me a couple of roast turkeys, with plenty of chestnuts,
stuffing, and sausages.”
With which Don, who had been calling us, dashed out into the flying
spume again.
“There’s no more water in the breaker,” says Loring, “and from the look
of the weather, there’ll be no chance of rigging the pump for some
days.”
“Then it’s likely well have a pretty good thirst on before we’re round
Cape Stiff.”
“A man does not want much to drink when he lives in wet clothes like we
are doing now.”
“All the same, with nothing to eat but hard-tack sodden with salt
water, I don’t see why one should not raise quite a respectable thirst,
even though we are up to our necks in water.”
Hard-tack is now our only food, and though we all try to fill up the
void by smoking, it is hard work even keeping a pipe alight, so wet and
damp is everything.
I took in another hole in my belt to-day, that makes the third since
leaving Frisco.
On going on deck at 8 A.M., we found that the gale was getting worse,
and though we were running dead before it, it was a case of snugging
down.
This kept us at work all the morning. We took everything off her but
the three lower-topsails, foresail, main upper-topsail, and main
lower-topgallant sail.
When taking in sail, before one can lay aloft and furl the sail, one
has to work on the main-deck, hauling it up to spill the wind out of it
by means of buntlines, leech, and clew lines. Whilst doing this we are
often up to our necks in water, and not seldom under water altogether;
sometimes, as we are hauling on a rope, a sea pours over us, sweeps
our legs from under us, and though we hang on, we are all rolled
and tossed about the deck, until the water, pouring off through the
ports in the bulwarks, frees the ship, and allows us to pick ourselves
up. Many of us are badly bruised, but that does not matter. I have
a bleeding and swollen knee, but what would be considered serious
anywhere else, is a mere trifle off the Horn; sea cuts, which eat down
to the bone, are very common, and many of the men have got bad sea
boils on their wrists and arms.
Having made the sails fast, when we reach the deck again we have to
“turn the gear up.” This is done on the backstays, a few feet above
the topgallant rail, and one hangs right over the whirling white water
that boils around the vessel. Most of the seas break aboard just below
your feet, but not a few rear up their foaming crests until they are
above the level of your eyes; you tighten your hold and take a long
breath--crash! and the ice-cold water is pouring over you, and doing
its utmost to tear you from your insecure perch as it pours like a
cataract on to the deck below.
It is trying work, as each roll of the vessel hurls you into the very
lap of the raging sea, sometimes dipping you to the waist, sometimes
under altogether.
Whilst turning this gear up, I very nearly went to Davy Jones’
locker--in fact, some of the watch thought I was gone.
An immense sea broke aboard, feet above my head, and I found myself
overboard; but, holding my breath, I hung on to the end of the main
topgallant clew-line like a leech, and as the water cleared off over
the lee rail I was floated back into safety.
Meanwhile the sea had caught Mac and Bower and swept them from the
main-hatch to right under the break of the poop, Bower bringing up
with a bang on the head against the poop ladder. The second mate, who
was on the poop, ran down the ladder and hauled them out. They emerged
half-drowned and bruised amidst loud laughter.
Coming to relieve the lee wheel this morning, Higgins lost his head
as usual; he had just got past the mizen fife-rail when he saw a huge
monster of a wave coming aboard. The sight of the approaching sea left
him standing nerveless and shaking in the middle of the main-deck, with
nothing handy to hang on to.
The old man was watching him from the break of the poop, and roared out,
“Get on to the fife-rail, you man there! Do you want to be washed
overboard, you paralysed idiot?”
But he was too late; down came the sea--a hiss, a roar, a stagger, and
a muffled shout, and poor old Higgins was an indistinguishable black
mass, being rolled over and over in the scuppers. Mac and I had to rush
down on to the main-deck and splash into the water up to our waists,
to pick him up before he got badly hurt by being jammed in a port or
hurled against a stanchion.
It was Jamieson’s trick at the wheel, and when he was relieved the old
man said to him,
“See that man safely forward,” indicating Higgins, “a whole lot,” as
they would say in Western America.
Ever since this, old Higgins had a dry-nurse, in the shape of one of
the A.B.’s, to take him along the main-deck.
I have lost my knife somewhere in the half-deck; it is probably
floating about on the _débris_ of brushes, dungarees, boots, caps,
socks, etc., which are washing about the floor.
As a sailor is helpless without his knife, in my watch below this
afternoon I thought I would take a pig-sticking hunting knife which I
have got, and grind down the point a bit, so that it will go into my
sheath easily.
The grindstone being forward under the forecastle head, with my knife
in my hand I warily started off on my journey. I had just got past the
main-hatch when I saw a big sea coming aboard, so I started to run,
but as the ship rolled, I slipped up and came down a terrific bang on
the deck by the galley. Picking myself up without a moment’s delay,
I dashed on and reached the forecastle in safety; not until then did
I notice that in my fall I had cut my thumb to the bone, and was
bleeding like a stuck pig. This was a serious business, as a sailor’s
thumb is a very necessary part of him, and cuts won’t heal off the Horn.
Well, I had to make the best of it, and after some difficulty in
stopping it bleeding, bound it up tightly with some rag. This done, I
ground my knife, and succeeded in getting aft again without any further
mishap.
This was a very unfortunate accident, as my thumb became inflamed and
was very painful, especially as I had to use it just as if it was quite
well. Besides which, all my trouble had been for nothing, as I found my
other knife floating in the half-deck soon afterwards, much to my joy,
as a knife is a knife, and more valuable on a wind-jammer than anywhere
else.
_Monday, 16th October._--Lat. 56°.09 S., long. 77°.04 W. Course--S. 60
E. Run 222 miles.
Blowing harder than ever, and a mountainous sea running. It is really
awe-inspiring, and the captain told me it is the biggest sea he has
ever seen, which is saying a good deal, as this is his thirtieth
passage round the Horn.
In the forenoon watch, our watch below, the main upper-topsail split
from top to bottom, so that sail and the lower-topgallant above it
were made fast, and now we are running before the gale under three
lower-topsails and foresail.
Poor Don had a great misfortune to-day, though we all could not help
laughing at it.
Whilst up on the main upper-topsail yard, he lost his only set of false
teeth overboard, with the result that he now speaks as it were with
tongues, but more as if he had a hot potato in his mouth. Poor Don, he
will have a very bad time now till the end of the voyage, for, with
hardly anything but hard-tack to eat, his gums will get pretty sore.
We are now well to the southward of the Horn, and the weather is as bad
as any weather can be; hail squalls blow up at minute intervals, and
Cape Horn greybeards, a mile or two long, with white shaggy crests,
chase us like birds of prey.
The weather is so bad that there are no albatrosses about, they are
all away to the nor’ard; there are, however, a few Cape pigeons and
mollymawks, which the weather seems to have very little effect upon.
It is very cold, and Don and I are wearing our oilskins over our
Klondyke fur coats at night.
The huge seas are beginning to poop her badly now, especially when the
port watch are on deck, as their helmsmen are a very indifferent lot.
Ever and anon in our watch below we hear a terrific crash on the deck
above us as a sea falls on to the poop, to pour in a roaring cascade
on to the main-deck.
All the weather clothes put up round the poop-rail have been torn down
by the sea, as if they had been bits of paper instead of the strongest
canvas.
No sailor likes his ship to be constantly pooped like this, and I can
see that many of the men are beginning to get anxious and uneasy,
especially the dagos.
The water pours into the half-deck now so constantly that it came in
over my bunk this morning as she rolled; but though it was over the
foot of my sleeping-bag, none got inside, and I rejoiced in warmth.
Still no fresh water, of course, and we are really beginning to get
thirsty.
We came on deck in the afternoon watch to find the sun trying to get
out through the rushing clouds, and its cold gleams lit up the wild
scene, and added a tinge of colour to the huge, forbidding, foam-topped
masses of raging, hurtling sea.
Just as Mac, Loring, and I got on to the poop at eight bells, an
immense sea pooped her. The mate, who was standing to leeward of the
chart-house, trying to get a sight, was carried off his legs, and only
the poop-rail saved him from being swept down on to the main-deck. He
kept his presence of mind, however, as every sailor does, and clung on
to his precious sextant, picking himself up as the water poured off,
very little the worse for his mishap, which might have so easily ended
seriously.
At the same time, one of the chart-house doors being ajar, volumes of
water found its way down into the cabin, and the steward had to get
Loring’s help below to put things shipshape and clear up the damage.
“If the old man does not heave her to soon, he’ll never be able
to heave her to,” said Mac to me as we stood in the lee of the
chart-house, “as, on the ship coming up to the wind in a sea like this,
it would roll her over and over.”
He was evidently getting uneasy at the terrific sea and the constant
pooping of the ship, and started yarning about the number of ships
which had been lost with all hands from running too long before a storm.
I rather enjoyed the fun myself, it was so stupendous, so magnificent,
so terrific.
When on the top of one of the great Cape Horners, looking forward was
like looking from the top of a mountain; first smaller mountains, then
hills, until what looked like the valley, seemed miles away in the
distance.
I am very certain that it was a good deal nearer two miles than one
mile from crest to crest of these enormous seas, and I don’t believe
any vessel under 500 tons could have lived in them for five minutes.
The main-deck is often out of sight now for some minutes, even the
hatches being covered, and as the ship rolls it becomes a roaring,
hissing, boiling cauldron.
In the midship-house they are almost as badly off as we are in the
half-deck, and the bosun, who is thoroughly scared, would give worlds,
I am sure, to be safe and sound on his Californian farm again.
The old man, with all the care on his shoulders, seems the least
anxious man on the ship, and is ably backed up by the two mates, who,
with nerves of steel, send no one where they dare not go themselves.
As for myself, I am in raptures with the magnificent sight, and delight
in the tremendous experience. I feel fit and braced up, ready to go
anywhere and do anything; there is a kind of glorious exhilaration
about it all which fills me until I can hardly keep it down;--I smile
and chuckle to myself, and watch the huge seas like a scientist over a
new invention, whilst the others hold on with scared, anxious faces.
All of a sudden, as I watch I catch sight of the topsails of a ship on
our port quarter.
“Sail ho!” I cry.
You could only see her when both were on the top of a sea; she
was a three-master, running before it like ourselves, under three
lower-topsails and reefed foresail.
The old man said she was probably a wool-clipper from Australia. A sail
is a cheering sight at all times; but at a time like this, in such a
sea, she was watched with great eagerness, as we scanned her through
the old ship’s telescope and the captain’s glasses.
I think the sight of her relieved the old man of a good deal of
anxiety, as he got very cheerful, and spun us several amusing yarns; so
much so, that I forgot about four bells, and I am afraid struck them
nearly ten minutes late, to the great disgust of the tired helmsman.
A landsman has no idea of the various noises on board a wind-jammer in
a storm. Every part of the ship groans; up above the gale roars, sings,
and whistles through the rigging; one backstay produces a deep note,
and one could fancy an organ was being played aloft; others shriek
shrilly like telegraph wires; some hum, some ring, others twang like
banjo strings; and above all is the crash of the seas falling on the
main-deck, and the clang of the hardly-used ports as they are banged
first open and then shut by each succeeding wave.
I am afraid the ends of the gear are badly mauled about, as they get
washed off the pins and dragged through the ports.
We have to be very careful going in and out of the half-deck, as the
break of the poop is filled up every other wave.
Some of these tremendous seas fall aboard the whole length of the
weather rail, and even the forecastles are inches deep in water, though
not to be compared with the awful state of the half-deck.
Indeed, it is really beginning to be dangerous in the half-deck; any
moment an extra big sea may break in the doors, and the watch below
would be drowned like rats in a trap.
We discussed the matter over our hard-tack in the first dog watch.
Mac was for asking to be allowed to sleep in the cabin; but if one
goes down to the sea in ships, one must take risks, and though the
careful Scot does not like the lookout at all, Loring and I being mad
and reckless Englishmen, are quite ready to take the risk, and are not
going to bother ourselves with what might happen.
In the second dog watch, whilst the second mate was below at his tea,
there was a slight lull in the gale, and the mate ordered the fore
upper-topsail to be reefed and set.
This was, no doubt, a great error of judgment on the mate’s part;
the glass was exceedingly low, and from the look of the sky, it was
evidently going to blow harder than ever.
Perhaps he thought he would try and put more speed on to her, as the
seas were pooping her so badly.
The old man was snatching a few moments for a snooze; but from what
we have seen, the mate is even a bigger terror than the old man at
carrying on--at anyrate, in this instance, I thought him reckless to
the verge of insanity.
But orders must be obeyed.
Two reef-earings were got ready, and away we went aloft and lay out on
the yard.
I went out on to the weather yardarm with Jamieson, and we soon had the
earing passed.
“Ready?” shouted Mac from the bunt.
“Aye, aye, sir!”
“Haul out to windward!”
“Eh--hai--ai! Oh--ho! Oh--ho--oh!” we chorused.
“Far enough, sir!”
“Haul out to leeward!”
“That’ll do!”
“Tie her up, and don’t miss any reef points!”
We soon had the reef points tied, and Mac sings out,
“Lay down from aloft, and set the sail!”
We took the halliards to the small capstan forward, and mastheaded
the yard to the chanty of “Away for Rio!” Jamieson singing the solo.
It was pretty bad weather for chantying, but there is nothing like a
chanty to put new life into a man, and we roared out the chorus at the
top of our pipes.
The dagos in the port watch looked out of their forecastle at us in
amazement, just in time to let a sea in, which pretty well swamped them
out, and did its best to wash us away from the capstan.
Of all the chanties, I think “Away for Rio!” is one of the finest, and
I cannot refrain from giving you the words.
CHANTY.--“AWAY FOR RIO!”
_Solo._ “Oh, the anchor is weigh’d, and the sails they are set,”
_Chorus._ “Away, Rio!”
_Solo._ “The maids that we’re leaving we’ll never forget,”
_Chorus._ “For we’re bound for Rio Grande,
And away, Rio! aye, Rio!
Sing fare-ye-well, my bonny young girl,
We’re bound for Rio Grande!”
_Solo._ “So man the good capstan, and run it around,”
_Chorus._ “Away, Rio!”
_Solo._ “We’ll heave up the anchor to this jolly sound,”
_Chorus._ “For we’re bound for Rio Grande,
And away, Rio!” etc.
_Solo._ “We’ve a jolly good ship, and a jolly good crew,”
_Chorus._ “Away, Rio!”
_Solo._ “A jolly good mate, and a good skipper too,”
_Chorus._ “For we’re bound for Rio Grande,
And away, Rio!” etc.
_Solo._ “We’ll sing as we heave to the maidens we leave,”
_Chorus._ “Away, Rio!”
_Solo._ “You know at this parting how sadly we grieve,”
_Chorus._ “For we’re bound to Rio Grande,
And away, Rio!” etc.
_Solo._ “Sing good-bye to Sally and good-bye to Sue,”
_Chorus._ “Away, Rio!”
_Solo._ “And you who are listening, good-bye to you,”
_Chorus._ “For we’re bound for Rio Grande,
And away, Rio!” etc.
_Solo._ “Come heave up the anchor, let’s get it aweigh,”
_Chorus._ “Away, Rio!”
_Solo._ “It’s got a firm grip, so heave steady, I say,”
_Chorus._ “For we’re bound for Rio Grande,
And away, Rio!” etc.
_Solo._ “Heave with a will, and heave long and strong,”
_Chorus._ “Away, Rio!”
_Solo._ “Sing a good chorus, for ’tis a good song,”
_Chorus._ “For we’re bound for Rio Grande,
And away, Rio!” etc.
_Solo._ “Heave only one pawl, then ’vast heaving, belay!”
_Chorus._ “Away, Rio!”
_Solo._ “Heave steady, because we say farewell to-day,”
_Chorus._ “For we’re bound for Rio Grande,
And away, Rio!” etc.
_Solo._ “The chain’s up and down, now the bosun did say,”
_Chorus._ “Away, Rio!”
_Solo._ “Heave up to the hawse-pipe, the anchor’s aweigh!”
_Chorus._ “For we’re bound for Rio Grande,
And away, Rio! aye, Rio!
Sing fare-ye-well, my bonny young girl,
We’re bound for Rio Grande!”
Of course the words are not exactly appropriate in the present
occasion, but the chorus is one of the best I have ever heard, with its
wild, queer wail.
It would have been a grand picture for a painter: the struggling ship
surrounded by foam, the great, greeny-grey seas, the wild, stormy sky
just tinged with yellow where the sun was setting, the wet, glistening
decks, and the ring of toiling men heaving round the capstan.
With the extra cloth, the poor old _Royalshire_ laboured terribly, and
seemed to make worse weather of it than ever.
Mac, Loring, and I managed to get along the main-deck and on to the
poop without being washed overboard, and there found the second mate,
the mate having gone below on being relieved, staring in consternation
at the reefed topsail.
I asked Jamieson to-day whether he called the _Royalshire_ a wet ship.
He said that no iron ship could expect to be anything but a half-tide
rock in such a terrific sea, and that he had been on ships which before
now would have had their boats and everything on deck swept clean away
by the weight of water. But the _Royalshire_ has everything of the
best, and all for strength.
“Great snakes, here comes a sea!” cried Loring all of a sudden.
I gave one look astern, and there, towering high above us, was a huge
monster, roaring and hissing as it curled its top; it looked as if it
must break full on to the poop, and was a sight to strike terror into
the stoutest heart.
Would she rise to it, or was this our last moment on earth?
“Hang on for your lives!” roared the second mate.
Up, up, up went the _Royalshire_, good old ship, she was going to top
it after all; but though she did her best, the heavy weight aft held
her down, and she did not quite get there.
With a deafening thud, the top of the monster curled into boiling surf
and fell upon us, overwhelming the helmsmen, who clung desperately to
the wheel, and dipping us to the waist as we hung in the weather jigger
rigging.
In a roaring torrent it poured across the poop, and then, like an
earthquake wave, fell aboard the whole length of the port-rail. Such a
height was it, that it toppled over in a terrible breaker upon the top
of the midship-house; the gig’s side and bottom fell out, as if hit by
a thunderbolt, the lamp-locker door was smashed down, and all the lamps
washed out (luckily Don was not inside this time, or he would have
certainly been drowned), and it filled the main-deck high above the
hatches until the water was on a level with the poop.
The poor old ship gave a sickly roll under the terrible weight of
water, and dipped Loring and myself up to our necks in the next sea as
we clung on to the port jigger-backstays.
All the life seemed struck out of her; she swung nearly five points off
her course, and old Foghorn, Jennings, and the second mate were working
like demons as they hove the wheel up.
“If she gets another on top of this, she’ll go down like a stone!”
yelled Mac in my ear.
“What price the watch below,” I returned. “I thought the half-deck
doors would go to a certainty.”
“Yes, they held out well; that lamp-locker door’s torn clean off its
hinges, and is smashed in like a rotten apple. Just look at the lamps
washing about; we must get them somehow, and put them down in the
cabin as soon as the water clears off a bit.”
“Aye, aye!”
“Did you hear the dagos yelling in the port-forecastle? I guess they
thought they were half-way to Davy Jones’ locker!”
Gradually the gallant ship shook herself clear, and the hatches showed
their tops once more above the water.
Down Mac, Loring, and I dashed on to the main-deck until we were up to
our waists in water, and started retrieving the lamps.
Meanwhile, a howling hail squall came down upon us, and the second mate
rushed for the captain.
As we splashed about removing the lamps from the wrecked locker, Mac
said grimly,
“If another sea comes along and catches us two in here, we’re gorners.”
“I should think the betting’s two to one on. Let’s hope old Wilson
won’t let her run off; she’s steering vile, though,” I reply.
At that moment Loring, who was on the poop ladder passing the lamps up,
shrieked at us,
“On the poop for your lives! God Almighty! look sharp, or you’re
caught!”
We made a wild rush for the ladder, a lamp under each arm; the invading
sea leaping madly at us, tried it’s best to catch us, but in vain, we
reached the poop in safety. The poop ladder was now working loose and
wanted relashing, or it would go adrift.
At this moment the old man came on deck, and giving one glance round,
turned to the second mate and said,
“Call all hands and get the sail off her, I must heave her to.”
“Aye, aye, sir!”
I ran down to call the mate, and found him dozing.
“It’s all hands, sir; the captain’s going to heave her to.”
“What’s that; is the weather worse?” he asked, as he struggled into his
oilskins.
“It’s blowing harder than ever, sir, and she shipped a very bad sea
just now,” I answered, and ran on deck again.
“All hands! all hands on deck!” yelled the second mate and Mac, as we
splashed forward.
The port watch turned out sharply, looking pretty scared.
“How did you like the big sea in the half-deck?” I asked of Don.
“It poured in like a watershute, and your bunk was under water in
double-quick time, my boy.”
“Well, that don’t matter much; I don’t suppose I shall get much chance
to sleep in it to-night.”
“Henderson, go and get your side lights and binnacles lighted,” called
the second mate.
“What’s become of them, sir; my lamp-locker’s washed bare as a bone?”
“They are all down in the cabin.”
Away went Don aft, to run the gauntlet of the furious seas until he
reached the safety of the poop.
“Fore upper-topsail first!” called the mate. “Tail on to the
spilling-lines all hands, and show what you can do!”
“Now then, starboard watch!” cried the second mate, “up with your sail,
and give the port watch a dressing down!”
“Lively, boys; haul, and show your spunk!” yelled Mac.
“Yo--ho! Yo--hay! Yo--ho--oh! Up she goes!”
Crash! and a sea broke over us. One gasp and a splutter, and we were
under water; swept off our feet, and knocked helter-skelter edgeways,
we lay in tangled knots of yellow humanity. Some one tried to cram
his foot down my throat, whilst my knee was gouging out his eyes. As
the water poured off, it left us bruised, battered, breathless, but
undaunted.
Scrambling to our feet, at it we went again, working like fiends and no
skulkers.
“Haul, and bust yourselves; haul till you break!” yelled Mac.
“One more pull and she’ll do!” cries the mate.
“Oh--ho! Oh--har!”
“Turn that!”
“All fast, sir!”
“Up aloft, and roll up the sail!”
“Now then, starbowlines, give her hell and show your grit!” shouts
the second mate as he dashes aloft at the head of us, as active as
a monkey, whilst the port watch, led by Scar and Don, take the port
rigging.
As we sprang into the shrouds, she rolled her rail under until we were
dipped deep below the surface. But we hung on like grim death, and not
a man was washed away.
Up we went over the futtock shrouds and on to the yard. It was pitch
black now, and spitting hailstones as big as marbles.
The wind blew up aloft with an edge to it that froze one’s extremities
into ice. The sail was as stiff as a board, and it seemed a matter of
impossibility to pick it up.
We hit it, we scratched at it, we clutched at it with hooked fingers
until the blood gushed from our nails.
“Catch hold of her, dig your fingers in!” cries Mac. “You there, Bower,
blast you, are you going to sleep on the damned yard, or what the devil
do you think you are doing?”
Frenzied men tore at the sail with both hands, hanging on by their
eyelids, whilst we out at the yardarm had the hardest task of all.
“Up with her!” roared the second mate at the bunt. “Now then,
all together--Oh--ho!--and she comes! On to the yard with
her--Oh--hay!--and roll her up!”
Truly a sailor must have each finger a fishhook, as they say.
Well, we got it on to the yard somehow, and made a fair stow of it.
Meanwhile the port watch were all at sixes and sevens, doing nothing
much but hang on and swear in five languages. Don’s language up aloft
is enough to scare the devil, though he’s the best man on a yard in the
watch.
“Lay down from aloft!” cries the second mate, and we gain the deck
glowing with triumph, for our last man is out of the rigging before
they have picked up their sail.
But now comes the great tussle--the foresail had to come in, and it is
a new sail.
Some of the men were pretty well coopered by the hard work, cold, wet,
and strain of it all. Poor old Higgins could hardly stand on his legs,
Bower was not much better, and as for the wretched port watch, their
struggles on the upper-topsail yard had quite worn them out. Don and
the red-headed third mate were hoarse with swearing, though both were
still full of beans; the Arab was a miserable object, whose teeth
rattled like castanets, and eyeballs rolled their whites in a frenzy of
terror.
“Port buntlines and clew-garnets first!” yells the mate, whilst the
second mate takes the ticklish job of easing away the sheet.
In the small space round the fife-rail, we were very cramped up and
crowded out, and it was difficult to get the whole weight into the
pull, so some of us got on to the fife-rail and hauled from above until
the blocks came down too low.
Difficulties of all sorts cropped up: the blocks jammed, the buntlines
twisted up and had to be unrove, and ever and anon the wash of a sea
swept over us.
Men lost their balance and cannoned against each other, men slipped,
and half a watch fell on their backs cursing, but the mate gave them no
time to think.
“Up you get there, no skulking, jump, or you won’t know what hit you!”
snarls Scar at the prostrate group. “You damned dagos, what good are
ye?--hell, you ain’t worth thumping.”
“Dat no right, mistar, we do our dam level best, dat’s true!” whimpers
one.
“Oh, curse you for the worst watch I ever sailed with!” roars Scar in a
frenzy of rage. “Here, you there, you blasted bandylegged Turk, haul,
can’t you! Don’t look at me like that, damn ye!”
Inch by inch, with incredible labour, we hauled the sail up. The
strongest of us got our fighting second wind, and the icy blast of the
south wind only put new breath into our nostrils.
“Take some of your best hands to the braces and spill the sail, Mr
Knowles!” called the mate.
Mac, Don, Jamieson, Rooning, Loring, and myself followed the second
mate.
“Jamieson and you, Bally, come with me to the weather braces; you, Mac,
take the other three and get in the slack as we give it you.”
This was as dangerous a bit of work as any one could want; the seas
swept in a continuous cascade over the rail where we were working, and
more than half the time we were under water, hanging on for our lives.
One blunder and the yards might take charge. Inch by inch we let out,
and those to leeward took in, watching our chance as the vessel rolled.
The second mate was like a bull for strength, and Jamieson a very tiger
for energy.
“Take it off! Carefully does it--that’s it--keep a turn in, and ease
away gently.” Then, as a huge black mountain of water appears above us,
“Hitch it, and hang on all. God Almighty! quick, for your lives!”
At last we have the fore-yards braced up fairly well.
“That’ll do!” yells the mate above the shrieking of the storm, and we
dash forward again.
The foresail was now fairly well hauled up.
“Are you going to reef it, sir?” asked Scar.
“No, furl it,” answered the mate. “Away you go aloft, and take a
yardarm at a time.”
There were a goodish crowd of us when both watches were out on one
yardarm, and we did not have as much trouble as we expected with the
sail.
The lower yards are so big that it requires two men to pass a gasket;
one sits down on the foot-ropes and catches the gasket, whilst the
other man, hanging above the yard, swings it to him.
On the fore-yard the white tops of the huge seas seemed on a level with
us as they rolled by in great mountains of ink, leaving a trail behind
like the wash of a Kootenay stern-wheeler.
The sight was truly grand, illumined as it was by a small wisp of a
moon which peeped out every now and then from behind the scudding
clouds.
With the foresail furled, we had now the three lower-topsails alone
set; but even this was too much, and the main lower-topsail had to come
in before the old man dared bring her up to the wind.
The most dangerous work of the lot came now, as we had to haul up the
main lower-topsail right amidships; here the water was up to our waists
between the seas, and every other moment the whole ship’s company was
under water.
It was a wonder nobody was lost, and a still greater wonder that no
limbs were broken.
The second mate, Scar, Jamieson, and myself, hauling up the port
clew-line, had a rare time of it.
Whenever we did get our heads above water we managed to get a few
short, strong pulls in; but mostly we had to work like divers.
If we saw a sea coming in time, we took a turn, and all four dashed
for safety, one into the rigging, another on to the skids, a third up
the iron ladder on to the midship-house, and the fourth on to the main
fife-rail.
At last we had the sail hauled up, and away we went aloft to furl it.
Directly we had got the sail on to the yard and were making it fast,
the helm was put down.
It was an exciting moment as her head came slowly up to the wind.
A huge sea rose up before us until the spume off its boiling crest was
blown into our faces, high up as we were, then down it swooped aboard,
sweeping her fore and aft.
Over and over went the poor old _Royalshire_, until the lower yardarms
were dipping into the whirl of broken water to leeward.
The main lower-topsail yard was almost straight up and down, and we
hung on like so many frightened flies.
“She’ll turn turtle!” yelled some one.
One of the dagos gave a shrill shriek, which rang like the cry of a
wild bird above the roar of the tempest, and in absolute terror would
have fallen off the yard if the man next him had not hauled him back by
the scruff of his neck.
“Hell, are you all going to sleep up here!” came the thundering voice
of the second mate at the bunt.
“Tie up the sail and get a move on, or there’ll be trouble.” Nothing
was able to dismay his indomitable spirit.
Mechanically we turned again to our work. Seconds passed like hours as
we felt the ship heeling over, ever over.
Was she going? She was almost on her beam ends now! We could not see
the decks; between them and us was a curtain of boiling, hissing spray
and broken water, into which the masts were stuck half-way up to the
lower yards.
After some terrible moments of suspense, we all felt that she had
stopped going over, and lay steady almost on her beam ends.
Long before this point had been reached, ten or twenty years ago, the
men would have been gathered in groups round the masts and standing
rigging, with axes ready, waiting the order from the captain to “Cut
away!”
But in a modern wind-jammer, with masts of iron and shrouds of the
strongest twisted wire, this is impossible, and you can no longer save
your ship by cutting away the masts.
Presently a lull came, and we could once more see the deck beneath us.
The _Royalshire_ was lying over with her lee rail dipped, so that the
fair-leads were level with the water, the hatches were half submerged,
and the lee side of the poop was under water.
As we came down from aloft, the sprays were thick, as high as the
main-yard, and it was like going into a boiling cauldron with the steam
rising from it, with the difference that its embrace was icy cold.
Nothing more could be done now; the ship lay hove-to, though she was
a good many points off. Our watch was sent below for a short hour and
a half before coming on deck for the middle watch, and the port watch
went on to the poop.
Mac, Loring, and I managed to get into the half-deck without mishap.
We were all three soaking wet, half numbed with cold, and with no dry
clothes to change to.
Mac was anxious, and thought she was lying very badly, and declared
that we should be lucky if we saw the night through.
Loring, who had been doing wonders in the way of work, was quite
dead-beat, and just got into his bunk as he was, and lay there in his
oilskins. He could not turn in, as everything was wringing wet; the
lower bunks had evidently been constantly under water whilst we were
snugging her down. I found, however, that the inside of my good old
sleeping-bag was comparatively dry, so slipping out of my oilskins and
rubbers, I crawled in, and soon got some heat into my body.
Mac also turned in, and as usual, smoked himself to sleep.
Just as I was dropping off to sleep there was a terrific crack as a
hail squall struck her.
“Something’s carried away aloft,” growled Mac. “Hope to hell we shan’t
be wanted.”
We heard the watch tramping off the poop on to the main-deck, and
presently heard them singing out.
I looked out through the forward porthole.
“They are hauling up the mizen lower-topsail to leeward,” I said.
“Likely the sheet’s carried away,” said Mac.
“Yes, and they are going to goosewing the sail.”
This was what had happened, and it took the whole of the port watch
until midnight to make the starboard half of the sail fast.
At one bell Don staggered in and turned us out; he was absolutely
dead-beat, frozen, and angry.
“Oh, those damned dagos, the cowardly curs; there are only about two
men in our watch left who are not too paralysed with funk to work.
We’ve had an awful time on the mizen-topsail-yard: this is fair hell.”
“What’s the night like?”
“Worse than ever; you can’t see farther than the after-hatch from
the poop, there’s so much broken water on deck, and if our watch get
forward safely at eight bells I shall be kind of surprised.”
Well, that was a bad middle watch; I never felt colder I don’t believe,
not even in Klondyke.
The main-deck was a sight to scare the stoutest heart, and it looked an
impossibility to get along it in safety.
Mac was sent forward to tell the watch not to come aft, but to stand-by
forward and to see that all the fore lower-topsail gear was clear, as
any moment we expected to see one of the sheets carry away.
We watched him as far as the mizen fife-rail, when a huge sea broke
aboard, making a clean sweep over everything, and throwing the spray
right over the crossjack-yard.
Mac shinned up the mizen lower-topsail sheet, and was hidden from our
view by the spume.
It took him over an hour to get forward and back again. Hardly had he
got safely on the poop before a furious hail squall, which we had been
watching come up for some time, burst down upon us.
The second mate, Mac, Loring, and I hung on to the jigger weather
rigging, and waited for something to carry away.
Over lay the _Royalshire_ until the fair-leads disappeared from sight,
and the leeward side of the poop was under water right up to the
chart-house.
The squall screamed and shrieked at us in fury, as if determined to
break down the gallant ship’s resistance.
The hailstones cut our faces until the blood came, helped by the
spindrift, which blew over us in sheets.
The deck was straight up and down, and still everything held aloft.
Everything depended on the fore lower-topsail; but it was a brand-new
cotton sail, and the sheets had been carefully seen to.
The squall passed, but others kept coming up.
Every few minutes I slid down to the chart-house to see if there was
any change in the glass; it was extraordinarily low, but fairly steady,
and inclined to rise.
The watch passed very slowly as we hung on to windward, numb with cold,
but ready for anything.
We tried to yarn, but the roar of the gale made it impossible to hear
each other, and we soon gave it up.
It seemed a wonder that any ship could keep afloat with all that
quantity of water on the main-deck.
So the watch passed without incident, except for a small matter which
amused Mac and Loring somewhat.
The second mate and I were both making carefully for the
chart-house--only two or three yards to go--but, with the deck sloping
every other moment like the side of a house, it needed some care.
As luck would have it, this time a wave struck her, and gave her a
quick heel to leeward. We both lost our balance and slid down to the
rail, bringing up in about four feet of water, from which we emerged
spluttering out curses and salt water, only to be greeted by the loud
laughter of Mac and Loring.
As the ship was hove-to, the helmsman had an easy time, and the wheel
might just as well have been lashed.
At last I was able to strike eight bells, and we went below, leaving
the worst four hours in the twenty-four to the port watch, namely,
those from 4 A.M. to 8.
_Tuesday, 17th October._--At seven bells we were awakened by the hoarse
cries of the port watch at the braces.
They were squaring the ship away before it again.
On coming on deck after our scanty breakfast of hard-tack, we found
that both sea and wind were better than they had been.
This was not saying much, for even as we emerged from the half-deck
we saw a sea whirling aft along the main-deck, with odd legs and arms
belonging to sundry members of the port watch sticking up out of it
like derelict spars.
The watch had evidently been washed away from the fore braces.
They were glad enough to get below at eight bells, and leave us the
tough job of setting the main lower-topsail, and reefing and setting
the foresail and three upper-topsails.
Very heavy work, as the main-deck is still under water, and some of the
men forward are completely used up from the cold, wet, and hard work;
all hands also are beginning to feel the pangs and grip on the stomach
of hunger and thirst, and I took my belt in another hole.
Although we were all pretty well worn out, we managed to ring out a
rare good chorus, chantying up the topsails.
Jamieson sang the solo of “The Wide Missouri,” a very celebrated chanty.
CHANTY.--“THE WIDE MISSOURI.”
_Solo._ “Oh, Shenadoah, I love your daughter,”
_Chorus._ “Away, my rolling river!”
_Solo._ “Oh, Shenadoah, I long to hear you.”
_Chorus._ “Ah! ah! We’re bound away
’Cross the wide Missouri!”
_Solo._ “The ship sails free, a gale is blowing,”
_Chorus._ “Away, my rolling river!”
_Solo._ “The braces taut, the sheets a-flowing,”
_Chorus._ “Ah! ah! We’re bound away
’Cross the wide Missouri!”
_Solo._ “Oh, Shenadoah, I’ll ne’er forget you,”
_Chorus._ “Away, my rolling river!”
_Solo._ “Till the day I die, I’ll love you ever,”
_Chorus._ “Ah! ah! We’re bound away
’Cross the wide Missouri.”
So it runs on, the roar of the storm and the weird shrieking and
humming in the rigging making an accompaniment hardly to be beaten by a
first-class band. Even the clash of the deck ports resemble cymbals and
the big drum.
Round we go, half a dozen voices roaring at the top of their pipes,
Mac’s and Jamieson’s shrill, wild, and broken, old Foghorn’s two
octaves below the rest of us, like the growling of a grizzly bear.
It’s wonderful how a chanty will get a topsail mastheaded. We sent the
mizen upper-topsail up to the tune of
“ON THE BANKS OF THE SACRAMENTO.”
_Solo._ “Sing and heave, and heave and sing,”
_Chorus._ “Hoodah, to my hoodah;”
_Solo._ “Heave, and make the handspikes spring,”
_Chorus._ “Hoodah, hoodah day.
And it’s blow ye winds, heigh-ho,
For Cal--i--for--ni--o;
For there’s plenty of gold, so I’ve been told,
On the banks of the Sacramento!”
It is rather difficult for a landsman to understand the sense of the
words in some of the chanties, and no doubt in most cases they need
some explanation. Some of them refer to people and events long since
gone and forgotten.
There is one chanty, however, which is, perhaps, as well-known ashore
as afloat, and few songs have more beautiful words than “Hame, dearie,
Hame,” and I cannot resist from giving the first verse.
_Solo._ “I stand on deck, my dearie, and in my fancy see,
The faces of the loved ones that smile across the sea;
Yes, the faces of the loved ones, but ’midst them all so clear,
I see the one I love the best, your bonnie face, my dear.”
_Chorus._ “And its hame, dearie, hame! oh, it’s hame I want to be,
My topsails are hoisted, and I must out to sea;
For the oak, and the ash, and the bonnie birchen tree,
They’re-all agrowin’ green in the North Countree.”
This is, of course, a capstan chanty, and it takes some beating when
sung by a good chantying watch.
As we were chantying up the main upper-topsail to the tune of “As off
to the South’ard we go,” a big sea fell aboard and washed Higgins and
Bower into the lee scuppers.
_Solo._ “Sing, my lads, cheerily, heave, my lads, cheerily,”
_Chorus._ “Heave away, cheerily, oh, oh!”
_Solo._ “For the gold that we prize, and sunnier skies,”
_Chorus._ “Away to the south’ard we go.”
_Solo._ “We want sailors bold, who can work for their gold,”
_Chorus._ “Heave away cheerily, oh, oh!”
_Solo._ “And stand a good wetting without catching cold,”
_Chorus._ “As off to the south’ard we go--o,
As off to the----”
Crash! bang! fizz!--“Hang on all!”--“Damn!”--“South’ard we go!”--“Curse
you, get your boot out of--” (splutter)--“Blasted fool!”--(puff,
splutter)--“O Lord!”--“Lost my only sou’wester, curse it!”--“Where’s
Bower?”--(coughing, panting, blowing, as the water begins to roll off)--
“In the lee scuppers with old Higgins, clasped in each other’s arms.”
“Ha! ha! ha!”
“Hallo, Rooning, bleeding?”
“Some one kicked me in the face.”
“Now then, tune her up, boys, give her hell!”
“Give us a chanty some one.”
So we struggle on, and by noon the _Royalshire_ has got all she can
stagger under.
The weather is moderating a bit, though hail-storms still blow up every
few minutes; but the sea is not as bad as it was, and the main-deck is
keeping freer of water.
With some risk, at six bells this afternoon we got the fresh-water pump
rigged, and managed to get some fresh water along, after losing a few
buckets and having some narrow escapes.
Poor Loring was caught by a sea and washed into the lee scuppers, and
got a black eye.
The cook also managed to get the galley fire alight, and we had some
hot tea for the first time for some days.
The wind hauled ahead in the first dog watch, and we had to brace her
up until the yards were on the backstays.
The half-deck is in a fearful state, and still inches deep in water.
Up above, hanging on lines suspended from bunk to bunk, are wet socks,
shirts, caps, mits, overalls, coats, mufflers, oilskins, rubbers, etc.,
and every spare corner is crowded with sea-boots hung up upside down to
let the water drain out of them.
The chests and my big hunting kit bag we have jammed up in one corner,
and lashed them so that they cannot carry away and break anybody’s leg
as the ship rolls.
Backwards and forwards across the floor wash trousers, shirts,
hair-brushes, matches, socks, books, papers, pieces of sodden
hard-tack, chunks of salt junk like bits of wood, shoes, caps, belts,
swabs, bits of soap, and every kind of derelict.
_Wednesday, 18th October._--We had a very cold night of it, and in the
first watch the wind went back into the old quarter, and we had hard
work squaring the yards.
We had to take a handy billy to each brace, and Jamieson had a narrow
escape from going overboard: he was standing on the topgallant rail
putting the strop on the main-brace, when a big sea swooped down upon
us. He saved himself by shinning up the brace, but we on the deck below
were all sent washing about on our backs.
In the middle watch the mate and Webber, who is the hardest worker
in the watch next to Don, were in the lee main-rigging at work in
bowlines. I forget what had carried away; but after close on two hours,
first under water and then with a minute or two above, they were
carried aft at eight bells, helpless with cold, and in a very bad way.
It took some time and hard rubbing before we could get any life into
them; and when we did get his circulation back a bit, Webber had no
dry things, so I lent him my arctic fur coat with the hood.
It was a plucky bit of work; but the mate is a fair demon, and does not
know what fear is, and as for the cold and work, he laughs at them as
trifles. He’s a man who came through the hawsehole, and has seen some
very hard times.
The old man is carrying on again, and we set all three lower-topgallant
sails in the morning watch.
Soon after daylight we sighted an outward-bounder under lower topsails
and staysails, having a bad time beating against the wind, and big sea
running.
She was a four-mast barque, with painted ports like ourselves, but with
single topgallant-yards. She passed us about a mile to the southward on
the starboard tack; the wind was a dead muzzler for her, and she was
evidently only beating on and off hoping for a slant.
We sighted land to the westward of the Horn about 11 A.M.--a bleak,
dreary-looking coast, all black rocks and white foam.
Cape Horn was called after the Dutch vessel _Horne_, which was the ship
of Schouten, who, with another Dutchman, Le Mair, was the first to
weather the Cape.
[Illustration: CAPE HORN
(_Drawn by the Author_)]
Before this, passages to the Pacific were always made through the
Magellan Straits, and navigators imagined that the land of Terra del
Fuego extended right south into the ice of the Pole.
The next man to these bold Dutchmen to round the Cape was Sir Francis
Drake, and, like the Dutchmen, he was but scurvily treated, and arrived
in the Pacific battered and torn, a sadder and a wiser man, with an
everlasting respect for the great South Wind and his companions the
Cape Horn Greybeards.
At 4 P.M. we passed the great and dreaded Cape Stiff, as sailors call
Cape Horn, towering huge and gaunt, worn and rugged, through its
everlasting battle with the raging sea.
At the same time we passed another outward-bounder, which was beating
in towards the Horn on the port tack, crossing our bows less than a
cable’s length ahead.
She was a full-rigged ship with painted ports, and, like the
four-master, was under lower-topsails alone.
We ran up our ensign, but she made no response; it was easy to see,
however, that she was a foreigner.
The sight of us foaming through it under lower-topgallant sails was
too much for her, and just as she got on our port bow, we saw a man go
aloft on to her main upper-topsail yard, and she soon had her fore and
main upper-topsails set.
She made a lovely picture as she surged past us, with the great,
black, world-renowned promontory as a background.
I wonder how long she and the four-master have been beating backwards
and forwards at the pitch of the Horn!--very likely over a fortnight.
The sight of these two ships beating under lower-topsails whilst we
were foaming along, doing over 10 knots under lower-topgallant sails,
put the old man in a very good humour, and he made Mac, Loring, and
myself come up on to the poop and look through his glasses whilst he
spun us yarns of the adventures he had had off this dreaded point.
Once, he said, he was outward bound, beating up against the usual heavy
gale, the weather being so thick that you could not see a ship’s length
ahead. All of a sudden the lookout yelled, “Breakers ahead!” and the
next moment out of the thickness appeared the great tower of Cape Stiff
itself.
The ship was running right on to the rocks at the foot of the Cape, and
in another five minutes she would have been lost with all hands; as it
was, he put her about with all dispatch, and as she came up to the wind
the huge breakers rolling in swept her decks, taking away all the boats
and tearing the standard compass from the deck.
This was a narrow escape, but he was destined another time to get more
close than was pleasant. This time it was blowing a terrific gale, and
after a very exciting and anxious struggle, he just managed to weather
Cape Stiff, and the next moment found himself in a calm land-locked
fiord, protected from the raging gale outside by huge cliffs.
Here he lay for nearly twenty-four hours, and then got a slant. Then
the old man got on to the subject of the difficulty of getting round
the Horn outward bound.
“This is my thirtieth passage round the Horn as master, and outward
bound I’ve never been more than a couple of weeks beating off the
pitch of the Horn; and what’s more, I never will be. Why is it that
some ships spend months beating off the Horn? Simply because, directly
he gets off the Horn, the captain puts his ship under lower-topsails,
and just beats backwards and forwards, waiting for a slant to get him
round; that’s not the way to get round the Horn; why, I’ve come round
under royals and passed ships under lower topsails. Whenever you get
a chance, you must take advantage of it, and cram on sail and force
your way against the Westerlies. No, don’t tell me that it’s not the
master’s fault when his ship spends a month or six weeks off the
Horn, for I know it is. Look at that foreigner under lower-topsails;
if we were outward bound now I’d have the _Royalshire_ under six
topsails and whole foresail;--though, mind you, I’m not saying that if
I was captain of that dagoman I’d have all that canvas set, for the
_Royalshire_ has got seven backstays, whilst that old tub’s only got
three.”
“Well, Lubbock,” he continued, turning to me, “you’ve seen the Horn
now, and come round it in the worst blow and biggest sea I’ve ever
seen down here; and what’s more, you’ve done it in one of the finest
sailing-ships afloat.”
“What’s happened to that full-rig ship we sighted in the bad blow, sir;
oughtn’t she to be in sight?”
“Well, she’d have had to heave-to when we did; for if she went on
running before it, she’s hard and fast ashore now, and not a man alive
to tell the tale.”
It breezed up again as darkness began to set in, and between the dog
watches all hands were called to handle the mainsail.
Lat. 56°.18 S., long. 69°.04 W.
The wind hauled ahead again early in the first watch, and we had to get
the topgallant sails in.
_Thursday, 19th October._--A very cold night, with rain, snow, and
sleet. In the middle watch the second mate caught a little land-bird on
the poop. What kind of a bird it was none of us knew; it was a little
larger than a sparrow, with yellow-edged wings. After examining it, we
let it go again, and it immediately flew away.
We are going 7 or 8 knots through the water, and passed Staten Island
early this morning some way off.
Lat. 54°.47 S., long. 64°.04 W.
The wind hauled aft again this afternoon, and we set topgallant sails
again. We passed another outward-bounder under lower topsails, a barque.
The water has not been coming aboard quite so freely to-day, so we
seized the opportunity to clear up the litter and wreckage in the
half-deck.
Oh! what a mess everything was in! After a long search, I found my
hair-brushes and all my matches in a far corner afloat in the spittoon,
so I am without matches for the rest of the passage. Mac, however,
has come to the rescue, and presented me with half a dozen boxes of
Japanese matches.
The carpenter’s shop is now as full as it will cram with wet clothes
from the half-deck and midship-house. Chips will not let the men dry
their things there, so they can only wring them out, and hang them up
under the forecastle head.
There was hardly a dry pair of socks or stockings in the ship, and all
sorts of expedients were resorted to to dry one’s rubbers and keep
one’s feet warm. We used to wrap our feet in paper, or put paper soles
inside the boots; and another dodge was, to light bits of paper and
let them burn inside the rubbers to warm them.
The second mate suffered a great deal from cold feet, as did most of
the others. I lent him my arctic moccasins, which are, of course, much
warmer than wet rubbers, but are so frightfully slippery on wet decks
that you absolutely can’t stand up in them.
I do not feel the cold half as much as any of the others. Whether my
Klondyke experience had hardened me I don’t know, but I used just to
wring out my socks and put them on again, and my feet very rarely felt
the cold.
No one wears mits, except at the helm, as you cannot work on deck or up
aloft in mits, as they soon get soaking wet and worn out.