_Whatever you do, make westing! make westing!_
--Sailing directions for Cape Horn.
For seven weeks the _Mary Rogers_ had been between 50° south in the
Atlantic and 50° south in the Pacific, which meant that for seven weeks
she had been struggling to round Cape Horn. For seven weeks she had been
either in dirt, or close to dirt, save once, and then, following upon
six days of excessive dirt, which she had ridden out under the shelter
of the redoubtable Terra Del Fuego coast, she had almost gone ashore
during a heavy swell in the dead calm that had suddenly fallen. For
seven weeks she had wrestled with the Cape Horn gray-beards, and in
return been buffeted and smashed by them. She was a wooden ship, and her
ceaseless straining had opened her seams, so that twice a day the watch
took its turn at the pumps.
The _Mary Rogers_ was strained, the crew was strained, and big Dan
Cullen, master, was likewise strained. Perhaps he was strained most of
all, for upon him rested the responsibility of that titanic struggle. He
slept most of the time in his clothes, though he rarely slept. He
haunted the deck at night, a great, burly, robust ghost, black with the
sunburn of thirty years of sea and hairy as an orang-utan. He, in turn,
was haunted by one thought of action, a sailing direction for the Horn:
_Whatever you do, make westing! make westing!_ It was an obsession. He
thought of nothing else, except, at times, to blaspheme God for sending
such bitter weather.
_Make westing!_ He hugged the Horn, and a dozen times lay hove to with
the iron Cape bearing east-by-north, or north-north-east, a score of
miles away. And each time the eternal west wind smote him back and he
made easting. He fought gale after gale, south to 64°, inside the
antarctic drift-ice, and pledged his immortal soul to the Powers of
Darkness for a bit of westing, for a slant to take him around. And he
made easting. In despair, he had tried to make the passage through the
Straits of Le Maire. Halfway through, the wind hauled to the north 'ard
of northwest, the glass dropped to 28.88, and he turned and ran before a
gale of cyclonic fury, missing, by a hair's breadth, piling up the _Mary
Rogers_ on the black-toothed rocks. Twice he had made west to the Diego
Ramirez Rocks, one of the times saved between two snow-squalls by
sighting the gravestones of ships a quarter of a mile dead ahead.
Blow! Captain Dan Cullen instanced all his thirty years at sea to prove
that never had it blown so before. The _Mary Rogers_ was hove to at the
time he gave the evidence, and, to clinch it, inside half an hour the
_Mary Rogers_ was hove down to the hatches. Her new main-topsail and
brand new spencer were blown away like tissue paper; and five sails,
furled and fast under double gaskets, were blown loose and stripped from
the yards. And before morning the _Mary Rogers_ was hove down twice
again, and holes were knocked in her bulwarks to ease her decks from
the weight of ocean that pressed her down.
On an average of once a week Captain Dan Cullen caught glimpses of the
sun. Once, for ten minutes, the sun shone at midday, and ten minutes
afterward a new gale was piping up, both watches were shortening sail,
and all was buried in the obscurity of a driving snow-squall. For a
fortnight, once, Captain Dan Cullen was without a meridian or a
chronometer sight. Rarely did he know his position within half a degree,
except when in sight of land; for sun and stars remained hidden behind
the sky, and it was so gloomy that even at the best the horizons were
poor for accurate observations. A gray gloom shrouded the world. The
clouds were gray; the great driving seas were leaden gray gloom shrouded
the world. The clouds were gray; the great driving seas were leadening;
even the occasional albatrosses were gray, while the snow-flurries were
not white, but gray, under the sombre pall of the heavens.
Life on board the _Mary Rogers_ was gray,--gray and gloomy. The faces of
the sailors were blue-gray; they were afflicted with sea-cuts and
sea-boils, and suffered exquisitely. They were shadows of men. For
seven weeks, in the forecastle or on deck, they had not known what it
was to be dry. They had forgotten what it was to sleep out a watch, and
all watches it was, "All hands on deck!" They caught snatches of
agonized sleep, and they slept in their oilskins ready for the
everlasting call. So weak and worn were they that it took both watches
to do the work of one. That was why both watches were on deck so much of
the time. And no shadow of a man could shirk duty. Nothing less than a
broken leg could enable a man to knock off work; and there were two
such, who had been mauled and pulped by the seas that broke aboard.
One other man who was the shadow of a man was George Dorety. He was the
only passenger on board, a friend of the firm, and he had elected to
make the voyage for his health. But seven weeks of Cape Horn had not
bettered his health. He gasped and panted in his bunk through the long,
heaving nights; and when on deck he was so bundled up for warmth that he
resembled a peripatetic old-clothes shop. At midday, eating at the cabin
table in a gloom so deep that the swinging sea-lamps burned always, he
looked as blue-gray as the sickest, saddest man for'ard. Nor did gazing
across the table at Captain Dan Cullen have any cheering effect upon
him. Captain Cullen chewed and scowled and kept silent. The scowls were
for God, and with every chew he reiterated the sole thought of his
existence, which was _make westing._ He was a big, hairy brute, and the
sight of him was not stimulating to the other's appetite. He looked upon
George Dorety as a Jonah, and told him so, once each meal, savagely
transferring the scowl from God to the passenger and back again.
Nor did the mate prove a first aid to a languid appetite. Joshua Higgins
by name, a seaman by profession and pull, but a pot-wolloper by
capacity, he was a loose-jointed, sniffling creature, heartless and
selfish and cowardly, without a soul, in fear of his life of Dan Cullen,
and a bully over the sailors, who knew that behind the mate was Captain
Cullen, the lawgiver and compeller, the driver and the destroyer, the
incarnation of a dozen bucko mates. In that wild weather at the southern
end of the earth, Joshua Higgins ceased washing. His grimy face usually
robbed George Dorety of what little appetite he managed to accumulate.
Ordinarily this lavatorial dereliction would have caught Captain
Cullen's eye and vocabulary, but in the present his mind was filled with
making westing, to the exclusion of all other things not contributory
thereto. Whether the mate's face was clean or dirty had no bearing upon
westing. Later on, when 50° south in the Pacific had been reached,
Joshua Higgins would wash his face very abruptly. In the meantime, at
the cabin table, where gray twilight alternated with lamplight while the
lamps were being filled, George Dorety sat between the two men, one a
tiger and the other a hyena, and wondered why God had made them. The
second mate, Matthew Turner, was a true sailor and a man, but George
Dorety did not have the solace of his company, for he ate by himself,
solitary, when they had finished.
On Saturday morning, July 24, George Dorety awoke to a feeling of life
and headlong movement. On deck he found the _Mary Rogers_ running off
before a howling southeaster. Nothing was set but the lower topsails and
the foresail. It was all she could stand, yet she was making fourteen
knots, as Mr. Turner shouted in Dorety's ear when he came on deck. And
it was all westing. She was going around the Horn at last ... if the
wind held. Mr. Turner looked happy. The end of the struggle was in
sight. But Captain Cullen did not look happy. He scowled at Dorety in
passing. Captain Cullen did not want God to know that he was pleased
with that wind. He had a conception of a malicious God, and believed in
his secret soul that if God knew it was a desirable wind, God would
promptly efface it and send a snorter from the west. So he walked softly
before God, smothering his joy down under scowls and muttered curses,
and, so, fooling God, for God was the only thing in the universe of
which Dan Cullen was afraid.
All Saturday and Saturday night the _Mary Rogers_ raced her westing.
Persistently she logged her fourteen knots, so that by Sunday morning
she had covered three hundred and fifty miles. If the wind held, she
would make around. If it failed, and the snorter came from anywhere
between southwest and north, back the _Mary Rogers_ would be hurled and
be no better off than she had been seven weeks before. And on Sunday
morning the wind _was_ failing. The big sea was going down and running
smooth. Both watches were on deck setting sail after sail as fast as the
ship could stand it. And now Captain Cullen went around brazenly before
God, smoking a big cigar, smiling jubilantly, as if the failing wind
delighted him, while down underneath he was raging against God for
taking the life out of the blessed wind. _Make westing_! So he would, if
God would only leave him alone. Secretly, he pledged himself anew to the
Powers of Darkness, if they would let him make westing. He pledged
himself so easily because he did not believe in the Powers of Darkness.
He really believed only in God, though he did not know it. And in his
inverted theology God was really the Prince of Darkness. Captain Cullen
was a devil-worshipper, but he called the devil by another name, that
was all.
At midday, after calling eight bells, Captain Cullen ordered the royals
on. The men went aloft faster than they had gone in weeks. Not alone
were they nimble because of the westing, but a benignant sun was shining
down and limbering their stiff bodies. George Dorety stood aft, near
Captain Cullen, less bundled in clothes than usual, soaking in the
grateful warmth as he watched the scene. Swiftly and abruptly the
incident occurred. There was a cry from the foreroyal-yard of "Man
overboard!" Somebody threw a life buoy over the side, and at the same
instant the second mate's voice came aft, ringing and peremptory:--
"Hard down your helm!"
The man at the wheel never moved a spoke. He knew better, for Captain
Dan Cullen was standing alongside of him. He wanted to move a spoke, to
move all the spokes, to grind the wheel down, hard down, for his comrade
drowning in the sea. He glanced at Captain Dan Cullen, and Captain Dan
Cullen gave no sign.
"Down! Hard down!" the second mate roared, as he sprang aft.
But he ceased springing and commanding, and stood still, when he saw Dan
Cullen by the wheel. And big Dan Cullen puffed at his cigar and said
nothing. Astern, and going astern fast, could be seen the sailor. He had
caught the life buoy and was clinging to it. Nobody spoke. Nobody moved.
The men aloft clung to the royal yards and watched with terror stricken
faces. And the _Mary Rogers_ raced on, making her westing. A long,
silent minute passed.
"Who was it!" Captain Cullen demanded.
"Mops, sir," eagerly answered the sailor at the wheel.
Mops topped a wave astern and disappeared temporarily in the trough. It
was a large wave, but it was no graybeard. A small boat could live
easily in such a sea, and in such a sea the _Mary Rogers_ could easily
come to. But she could not come to and make westing at the same time.
For the first time in all his years, George Dorety was seeing a real
drama of life and death--a sordid little drama in which the scales
balanced an unknown sailor named Mops against a few miles of longitude.
At first he had watched the man astern, but now he watched big Dan
Cullen, hairy and black, vested with power of life and death, smoking a
cigar.
Captain Dan Cullen smoked another long, silent minute. Then he removed
the cigar from his mouth. He glanced aloft at the spars of the _Mary
Rogers_, and overside at the sea.
"Sheet home the royals!" he cried.
Fifteen minutes later they sat at table, in the cabin, with food served
before them. On one side of George Dorety sat Dan Cullen, the tiger, on
the other side, Joshua Higgins, the hyena. Nobody spoke. On deck the men
were sheeting home the skysails. George Dorety could hear their cries,
while a persistent vision haunted him of a man called Mops, alive and
well, clinging to a life buoy miles astern in that lonely ocean. He
glanced at Captain Cullen, and experienced a feeling of nausea, for the
man was eating his food with relish, almost bolting it.
"Captain Cullen," Dorety said, "you are in command of this ship, and it
is not proper for me to comment now upon what you do. But I wish to say
one thing. There is a hereafter, and yours will be a hot one."
Captain Cullen did not even scowl. In his voice was regret as he
said:--"It was blowing a living gale. It was impossible to save the
man."
"He fell from the royal-yard," Dorety cried hotly. "You were setting the
royals at the time. Fifteen minutes afterward you were setting the
skysails."
"It was a living gale, wasn't it, Mr. Higgins?" Captain Cullen said,
turning to the mate.
"If you'd brought her to, it'd have taken the sticks out of her," was
the mate's answer. "You did the proper thing, Captain Cullen. The man
hadn't a ghost of a show."
George Dorety made no answer, and to the meal's end no one spoke. After
that, Dorety had his meals served in his stateroom. Captain Cullen
scowled at him no longer, though no speech was exchanged between them,
while the _Mary Rogers_ sped north toward warmer latitudes. At the end
of the week, Dan Cullen cornered Dorety on deck.
"What are you going to do when we get to Frisco?" he demanded bluntly.
"I am going to swear out a warrant for your arrest," Dorety answered
quietly. "I am going to charge you with murder, and I am going to see
you hanged for it."
"You're almighty sure of yourself," Captain Cullen sneered, turning on
his heel.
A second week passed, and one morning found George Dorety standing in
the coach-house companionway at the for'ard end of the long poop, taking
his first gaze around the deck. The _Mary Rogers_ was reaching
full-and-by, in a stiff breeze. Every sail was set and drawing,
including the staysails. Captain Cullen strolled for'ard along the poop.
He strolled carelessly, glancing at the passenger out of the corner of
his eye. Dorety was looking the other way, standing with head and
shoulders outside the companionway, and only the back of his head was to
be seen. Captain Cullen, with swift eye, embraced the mainstaysail-block
and the head and estimated the distance. He glanced about him. Nobody
was looking. Aft, Joshua Higgins, pacing up and down, had just turned
his back and was going the other way. Captain Cullen bent over suddenly
and cast the staysail-sheet off from its pin. The heavy block hurtled
through the air, smashing Dorety's head like an egg-shell and hurtling
on and back and forth as the staysail whipped and slatted in the wind.
Joshua Higgins turned around to see what had carried away, and met the
full blast of the vilest portion of Captain Cullen's profanity.
"I made the sheet fast myself," whimpered the mate in the first lull,
"with an extra turn to make sure. I remember it distinctly."
"Made fast?" the captain snarled back, for the benefit of the watch as
it struggled to capture the flying sail before it tore to ribbons. "You
couldn't make your grandmother fast, you useless scullion. If you made
that sheet fast with an extra turn, why didn't it stay fast? That's what
I want to know. Why didn't it stay fast?"
The mate whined inarticulately.
"Oh, shut up!" was the final word of Captain Cullen.
Half an hour later he was as surprised as any when the body of George
Dorety was found inside the companionway on the floor. In the afternoon,
alone in his room, he doctored up the log.
"_Ordinary seaman, Karl Brun," he wrote, "lost overboard from
foreroyal-yard in a gale of wind. Was running at the time, and for the
safety of the ship did not dare come up to the wind. Nor could a boat
have lived in the sea that was running_."