IN WHICH I FIND A MOST REMARKABLE HAVEN
With the coming of daylight I would have tried to get some canvas on the
Wavecrest--if only a rag of jib--had the gale not been so terrific. I
doubted if, under a pocket-handkerchief of sail, I could have got her
head around without swamping her.
And then, what better off would I have been? I could have made no
progress beating against such a wind and it was better and safer to ride
before it, no matter where I was blown. There was no land ahead of me
save the shores of Spain--and Spain was a long way off.
At least, it was better to run while the sea remained in its present
condition. As I have said, the waves were beaten flat by the savage
wind. But, if there should come a lull in that, I knew well enough the
sea would instantly leap into billows that would soon founder the little
sloop if she could neither be got around to ride them, or could not
keep ahead of them.
I lashed the tiller again--as I had twice during the night--and went
below for coffee. I brought back some pilot crackers and a can of
peaches that was among the stores I had bought in town the day before,
and made a fairly satisfactory breakfast of the hard bread and fruit
with a pint can of coffee. But I would not remain below any length of
time now. It looked very much to me as though the clouds might break and
the wind shift, or lull, at any moment.
Several hours passed, however, and my watch (which I had not forgotten
to wind) told me that it was fast approaching noon before any change
came. Then the shrieking gale dropped suddenly and the gusts of rain
ceased.
I leaped up at once to unfurl the jib. With a little canvas on her I
believed the sloop could be wore 'round and headed into the wind before
the waves sprang up. Perhaps it would have been wiser to have given her
a hand's breath of the mainsail. However, before the bit of canvas
bellied out and I had dashed back to the helm, the first wave broke over
the stern of the sloop.
It was a deluge! I was waist deep in the foaming flood; the cockpit was
full; the sloop had already shipped about all the water that was good
for her, and it was plain she was too water-logged to answer the helm
promptly.
Up came a second wave. The lulling of the wind gave the waves a chance
to gather force and height. This one curled fairly over my head and,
looking up and over my shoulder at the great, green, foam-streaked wall
of water, I thought my last minute above the surface had come!
It broke. I can remember nothing at all of the ensuing few moments. I
only know that I was smothered, drowned, completely overwhelmed by the
deluge of water that came inboard. The force of it burst open the slide
of the hatch and barrels of water flooded into the cabin. The
Wavecrest settled. If another wave as great had come inboard directly
in the wake of this one, I am convinced that I would not be writing this
record of my life.
As the wave passed on, the keen whistle of the gale returned. I leaped
up and staggered forward. I knew that unless I could get way upon the
sodden craft she would very quickly plunge beneath the surface. I shook
out the staysail as well as the jib, but dared not spread too much
canvas to the wind which seemed about to swoop down again. These sails
filled and the Wavecrest showed her mettle, sodden as she was with the
enormous amount of water that had come inboard.
There was a deal of water awash in the cockpit; therefore the shallow
hold must have been full. And I knew there was plenty slopping about in
the cabin, ruining everything. I rigged the little pump amidships and
the pipe threw a full stream of bilge across the deck. And it wasn't
bilge long, but came clear. Inboard came another wave--but not a large
one this time--and I pumped harder than ever.
The Wavecrest was lumbering on too slowly to escape the following
waves. In her then condition it would have been folly to seek to head
her about. She would have rolled helplessly in the trough of the sea as
sure as I tried it. But if she was going to sail before this wind and
sea she must sail faster.
The gale was steadily increasing again, but it did not blow as hard as
it had during the night and early morning. I ventured a little more
canvas and although the mast and rigging strained loudly, nothing got
away. The speed of the sloop was increased, especially so as I kept at
the pump and got the hold clear.
Although the hungry billows still followed the Wavecrest little water
came inboard for a time save the spindrift whipped from the crests of
the waves. But with a sea running so high there was danger of swamping
every moment. I dared not leave the helm for long; to go below at all
was out of the question. I went without food all that day, thankful that
I had managed to make a fairly hearty breakfast.
And all the time the wind blew steadily, the sea strove mightily, and
the sloop scudded before both like a whipped pup. I would not like to
say how fast she traveled, for I do not know; I was only certain that
even in a racing wind I had never sailed so fast before.
I had become wet through to the bone. Neither the poncho nor the
oilskins could keep me dry when the sea had broken over the sloop. And
the wind was keen and searched me through and through. My teeth were
a-chatter, the cold pricked me like needles, and I was altogether very
miserable indeed. Often had I been soaked to the skin while on a fishing
venture; but there was the prospect of a hot drink and a warm fire
ahead of me. There was nothing in the line of comfort before me now. The
sea remained untenanted and the Wavecrest drove on as though she were
enchanted.
Hour after hour dragged by. The sun did not appear; indeed, rain-gusts
swept now and then across the sea. The waves were so steep that when the
sloop plunged down the slope of one the rain swept on over my head and
only rattled upon my sail. Ragged masses of cloud swept across the sky.
In the distance it really seemed as though the waves leaped up and met
these low-hung clouds.
And how I strained my eyes for some speck to give me hope of rescue!
From the summit of almost every wave I stood up and gazed about
me--especially ahead. Behind were only the ravenous waves seeking to
overtake and swamp me. Ahead I hoped to see the vapor of some steamer,
or, at least, the bare poles of a sailing vessel that could rescue me
from my perilous situation.
I dreaded another night. Indeed, I did not see how I could sail the
Wavecrest until morning without either food or sleep. To lash the
tiller and let the sloop drive on was too reckless a course to even
contemplate.
A man lost in a forest, or on a desert, may be lonely; but a voyager
alone on the trackless and empty ocean is in far worse condition,
believe me! Not only is he lost, but the elements themselves are
continually buffeting him. In all this dreary day there was not a second
in which my life was not threatened.
Finally when I knew there could not be many hours more of daylight, upon
rising to the summit of a great billow, I beheld something riding the
seas not far ahead. For some reason I had not seen the bulk of this
strange apparition before and at first I was sure it was the
turtle-turned hulk of a wreck.
But as the Wavecrest sped on, bringing me nearer and nearer to the
object, I saw that I must be wrong. It was not shaped like a ship's hull
although it was black and clumsy enough. But immediately about it the
waves seemed to be calm. At least no waves broke and foamed about the
floating mass.
I watched the thing eagerly, although I could not hope for rescue under
such a guise. It was not, I was almost instantly sure, a vessel of any
kind; as the Wavecrest kept on her course, which brought me directly
upon the object, I was not long at a loss to identify it.
Although I had seldom been far out of sight of land myself, and had
never seen any ocean creature bigger than a blackfish (not the tautog,
but the pilot-whale) I had listened to the stories of old whalemen along
the Bolderhead docks, and I was pretty sure that I had sighted one of
those great mammals--a creature of the sea which is no more a fish than
a horse or a cow is a fish, yet is the greatest wonder of marine life.
Beside, the peculiar condition of the sea immediately about the object
revealed its identity. The whale was dead, I was sure. Otherwise it
would not have been at the surface so long in such a gale. And being
dead, and the seabirds and shark-fish having got at its carcass before
the storm, there was good reason for the waves not breaking over it.
The dead whale lay in a slick, or "sleep," as some old whalemen
pronounce the word, and hope revived in my troubled mind the instant I
realized what the object was, and its condition. The waves were
following me as hungrily as ever; at any moment the sloop might be
overwhelmed. But once let me get the Wavecrest in the lee of this dead
whale, I could bid defiance to the storm. There I could outride the
gale and, when it was fair again, set the sloop's nose toward the
distant mainland.
With rare good fortune the sloop needed little guidance to reach the
dead whale. My original course had been aimed for the huge beast. As the
Wavecrest gained upon it the monster was revealed, lying partly on its
side, all of fifty feet from tail to nose. Of course there were no
seabirds upon the carcass now, nor did I see the triangular fin of a
shark anywhere about. They had ripped and torn at the carcass
sufficiently, however, to release copiously the oil from the casing of
blubber, or fat, with which the whale is entirely covered.
My Wavecrest bore down upon the becalmed circle and suddenly I found
the waves heaving smoothly under the sloop instead of breaking all about
her. I ran to the canvas and stowed it quickly, then brought the sloop
around into the lee of the huge bulk of the whale. I had a
broken-shanked harpoon and a boathook. I plunged these both into the
carcass and then attached the Wavecrest, bows and stern, to these
strange mooring-posts.
There she was, as safe as though we were in a landlocked harbor, rising
and falling with a motion by no means unpleasant. The exuding oil made
a charmed circle about the sloop, into which the agencies of the gale
could not venture. The wind wailed as madly across the sea, and the sea
itself, at a little distance, tumbled, and burst in a most chaotic
manner; but here in the slick I lay at peace--and grateful indeed I was
for this remarkable haven.