ROUNDING THE HORN
No matter how miserable one may be, action of some kind always comes
as a relief. Our hard lot on the _Fuller_ was positively made more
bearable by the added hardships of the storm, and when the night was
past we were glad to force our chilled limbs and hungry bellies to some
sort of effort. Anything was better than to hang to the mizzen rigging
and slowly freeze to death. The torn hatch tarpaulin was a serious
matter. The merchant service holds no higher duty, where passengers are
not carried, than the duty toward cargo. This is often forgotten by men
who lack the true traditions of the sea. But our officers were well
alive to the importance, not only of bringing our ship around the Horn,
but of bringing her cargo through in good condition.
The mate, followed by Axel, Brenden, Frenchy, and Mike, a husky,
well-set-up sailor of the starboard watch, went into the waist and
worked their way along the deck at great peril. After much trouble
they managed to wedge down the flapping canvas, which was under a
constant deluge of blue water, whole seas coming aboard in quick
succession.
By noon the weather abated somewhat, and we got the ship under fore
and mizzen lower tops'ls, and close reefed main upper tops'l. Before
nightfall we had sent down what remained of the main lower tops'l, and
bent a new sail. That afternoon we experienced an adventure fraught
with much excitement to us of the port watch. The jib having worked
loose from the gaskets, by constant dipping into the sea, as the ragged
crests of blue water buried the bowsprit and jibboom, six of us were
ordered out to secure the sail by passing a three-inch manila line
around the sail and boom.
Brenden, Scouse, Frenchy and I were on the weather side, and Joe and
Martin went out on the boom to leeward. The job was almost finished,
two seas had already drenched us, and we were chilled with the dip in
the cold water, when the ship rose to a heavy roller, her bow lifted
high into the eye of the wind, and then plunged down into the deep
trough between two seas. The momentum was so great that she failed to
rise quickly enough, and her jibboom stabbed right into the heart of
the onrushing wall of cold blue water, regardless of the half dozen
luckless wretches clinging to the furled canvas with all their might.
The great sea went on over us, thundering down on the fo'c'sle head,
and rushing aft along the deck in a noisy white cataract of foam. When
she shook free we were left clinging to the jibboom like drowned rats,
that is, all of us but Joe.
Aft on the poop, the mate heard our cries, and, springing to the lee
rail, he yanked a bight of line from a pin and hove it overboard,
catching Joe just in time as he rose close along side. When she heeled
to leeward, ready hands hauled the half-drowned Joe on board. Captain
Nichols had come up on the first cry, and taking Joe into the cabin,
he poured out a liberal hooker of whiskey from the medicine chest. The
funny part of the whole thing was that Joe was more thankful for the
drink than for his escape from certain death, for we never could have
lowered a boat in that sea.
We got a watch below that night, and the cook managed to heat some
coffee, but cold salt beef and hard tack were all that the kids
contained when we went below for supper. Wrapped in our damp clothes
we managed to peg in a few hours of necessary sleep. Life, for a week
afterward, was not worth living, unless one held some latent strain of
the old berserker flowing through his veins. It was a fight, and the
elements charged us and flanked us in midnight fury, increasingly cold
as we edged farther to the south in our attempt to round the meridian
of Cape Horn.
In latitude 56° 29' S. and longitude 68° 42' W. from Greenwich, about
sixty sea miles S. W. by W. from Cape Horn, lies the island of Diego
Ramirez, a weather-worn rock jutting from the black waters of the
sub-antarctic. Ten days after fetching away from the Cape, we beat
south and sighted this grim sentinel, the outpost of the tempest and
the gale--ten days of such seagoing as seldom falls to the men who
nowadays go down to the sea in steamers.
Under conditions of the kind we experienced, every man was put to
the test, and his worth as a member of the crew clearly established.
Fortunately for us, and for the races representative in our small
company--of which we boasted quite a few--no strain of yellow fear
developed during the days and nights when the work aloft called for
the performance of duty dangerous in the extreme. Not one of us but
had been shipmates with men lost overboard, or maimed for life in
accidents to sail or spars. Never was there a moment's hesitation to
lay aloft, or out on a swaying bucking yard in the black cover of
night, to grapple with canvas hard and unruly. No work was too trying,
and no hours of labor too long. We thought nothing of the eternal
injustice of a fate that sent us out to sea to fight for our very lives
on a ship far too big for so small a crew to handle safely, if indeed
any crew of mere men could ever _safely_ handle so large a ship.
Never was there a suspicion of holding back, and through it all,
the discipline of the disgruntled warmer latitudes was dropped and
orders were quickly obeyed as a matter of course; yes, as a matter of
self-preservation. The disgusting profanity of warmer climes was laid
in the discard for a while, and we were men doing men's work.
Wet and hunger were the rule; to be chilled with the cold was normal,
and our salvation was the constant struggle with the working of the
ship. Accidents occurred, and old Jimmy lay in his bunk with his right
arm in a bandage from a dislocation due to a fall on the slippery deck.
This was roughly set by the captain with the help of the mate and the
carpenter. The galley fire had hardly been lighted an hour at a time as
the seas flooded everything forward. Cold salt junk--from the harness
casks to the kids--comprised the mainstay of our ration, not to mention
the daily whack of mouldy, weevily hard tack. Had it not been for an
occasional steaming hot can of slops called tea and coffee, we should
have surely perished.
Our oilskins were in shreds, boots leaked, and every stitch of clothing
in the ship was damp, except when dried by the heat of our bodies.
Had I been told of this before starting out--well, I suppose I would
not have believed it--and, when I say that during it all we had a
fairly good time and managed to crack jokes and act like a lot of
irresponsible asses, it goes to prove that man was born to be kicked;
be he on a sailing ship around the Horn, on the hard edge of the Arctic
littoral, or in the bloody trenches; fate is always there to step in
and deliver the necessary bumping.
When south of Diego Ramirez, we passed the American ship _Shenandoah_,
Captain "Shotgun" Murphy, bound from 'Frisco to Liverpool, with a cargo
of grain. She was racing two English four-masted barks, and we were
told that she dropped her hook in the Mersey a month ahead of them.
When sighting the _Shenandoah_ we were close to the wind on the
starboard tack, standing about due west; the _Shenandoah_ was running
free, with the wind two points abaft her port beam, carrying everything
to t'gans'ls, stays'ls, and jigger, a truly magnificent sight and the
first sail we had seen close aboard since leaving the _Tam O'Shanter_
off Sandy Hook.
When abeam we exchanged the courtesies of the sea, dipping our ensign
from the monkey gaff, and running aloft our "number," the gay string
of lively colored flags, pennant, and burgee--J. V. G. B. of the
International Code--the universal language of the sea.
The _Shenandoah_ also ran up her number, a spot of color in the
beautiful spread of white cotton canvas on her yards. The sky was dull,
but the clear air set her off with cameo like distinctness against the
grey background of the horizon. The deep blue of the sea smothered
white under her bow and, as she rolled gracefully, the yellow gleam of
her copper flashed along under her sleek black side, or else we caught
a glimpse of her white decks over the line of her bulwarks, as she
dipped to leeward.
We had sighted the sail ahead, and, having our starboard tacks aboard,
were accorded the right of way. Hitchen, of the other watch, gathered
with a group of us on the fo'c'sle head to watch the stranger drive
past us. Being somewhat of a scholar, the little Englishman delivered
himself of the following verse:
"If close hauled on the starboard tack,
No other ship can cross your track;
If on the port tack you appear,
Ships going free must all keep clear;
While you must yield when going free,
To sail close hauled or on your lee.
And, if you have the wind right aft,
Keep clear of every sailing craft."
In obedience to this Law of the Sea, the four-masted ship _Shenandoah_
starboarded a point, passing the _Fuller_ well to windward, and some
five miles south of the Island of Diego Ramirez.