slipped by before the subject of a sailing date received the attention
it deserved. The Skipper grunted his disapproval of our dilatory
methods, and pointed out in a satirical fashion peculiarly his own that
there were "things" to be done. Amongst them, he mentioned the necessity
of making out a new deviation card by the Polar Star, whereat Steve and
I collapsed. Had we not done with this pest of deviation? Had we not
already discovered and tabulated, at the cost of terrific mental effort,
the error of the dream ship's compass owing to local attraction?
The Skipper admitted as much with a wistful smile, but pointed out that
deviation has an aggravating habit of changing with latitude. It was
the first we had heard of it, and that night we sat again under our
long-suffering professor, and swung the dream ship to a mocking North
Star.
[Illustration: Island]
Then there was the matter of our broken boom. The Skipper and I towed
it over, neatly scarfed (dovetailed and bound) from a neighbouring
shipyard the next morning. And the instability of things below as
demonstrated in the Bay of Biscay? This was remedied by having iron
bands placed round everything movable, and screwed to bulkhead or floor.
We were ready. The Skipper stepped ashore with his modest little
suitcase, and limped away without so much as a backward glance. Why?
His "missus" has told me since that he never expected to see us again.
So we three and the dream ship dropped down Vigo River bound for Las
Palmas, Canary Islands, with the biggest mixed cargo of hope and
ignorance that ever put to sea.
Four hours on and eight off was how we apportioned our watches and,
thanks to fair winds and the easy handling of the dream ship, it was
seldom necessary for more than one of us to be on deck at a time. In
fact, there were hours on end when the helmsman could peg the tiller and
take a constitutional.
Cooking we took week and week about, a dreaded ordeal. It is one thing
to concoct food in a porcelain-fitted kitchen on _terra firma_, and
quite another to do it over a primus stove in a leaping, gyrating
fo'c's'le. Porridge was found adhering to the ceiling after Steve's
"week," but hush! perhaps he may have something to say on the subject of
Peter and myself. There is always plenty to say about the other fellow,
but in nine cases out of ten it is best left unsaid. Forbearance is as
much the keynote of good-fellowship on a dream ship as
elsewhere--perhaps more--and we are rather proud of the fact that we
have covered half the world without battle, murder, or sudden death.
With only three of a crew some of our troubles may be imagined, but
undoubtedly the worst of these, after a couple of weeks at sea, was
being awakened from a trance-like sleep to take a trick at the tiller.
One does not feel human under such circumstances, but more in the nature
of a bear disturbed during hibernation.
And the awakener's task is not much better. He is forced to peg the
tiller, even with a following wind, nip below to resuscitate somehow his
log-like relief, and get back before the ship jibes. If there is time
he may employ the proper and humane method of applying gradually
increased pressure to the sleeper's arm until he awakes. If there is
not, he must resort to any merciless method that proves effective. In
either case, he is as unpopular as an alarm clock, which, by the way, we
tried, but discarded on account of its waking everyone aboard.
The manner of our several wakings formed an interesting, if somewhat
intimate, subject of discussion at breakfast one morning. Peter's was
voted uninteresting because whatever means were employed to arouse her
she merely opened her eyes, and meekly murmured: "All right." Steve,
upon the other hand, was uncertain. If he happened to be dreaming at
the time, which was usually the case, he either hit out the instant he
was touched, or muttered something unintelligible, and tenderly covered
the disturbing hand with his own.
As for me, I yawned cavernously, invariably said: "How's she going?" and
almost as invariably fell asleep again. Or so runs the report, and one
is not permitted to argue with reports. Verily, if man would discover
himself--and others--let him have recourse to a dream ship and a crew of
three!
It was during the passage from Vigo to Las Palmas that we first
experienced that most aggravating of winds, the light, varying,
following. I have heard schooner skippers declare that they prefer the
"head" variety, and I can well believe it. At night, when it is
exceedingly difficult to tell where such a wind is coming from, it is no
more pleasant to jibe inadvertently than to have to do so sometimes
thrice within the hour to keep the ship on her course. It wears out a
short-handed, light-weight crew (Peter turned the scale at ninety-eight
pounds, Steve at one hundred and forty-five, and myself at one hundred
and forty), and conservation of energy, which makes for good health, is
of prime importance on a voyage such as ours.
Finally, we lowered the mainsail, with its jolting, crashing boom, and
carried on in blessed tranquillity under a squaresail, which proved to
be the most useful sail we had aboard.
At the end of seven days' routine, and fair but light winds, we
experienced the acute joy of finding land precisely where our frenzied
calculations had placed it. As Madeira loomed on the starboard bow,
Steve was seen to pace the deck with a quiet but new-born dignity--until
hailed below to help wash dishes. But even this failed to quell the
navigator's exuberance, and the dish-washer exchanged views on the
subject with the helmsman through the skylight. This, then, was the
navigation that master mariners made such a song and dance about! Well,
we must be master mariners, that was all we had to say! We had summoned
Madeira, and Madeira had appeared! We were not at all sure that we had
not discovered Madeira!
Peter seemed strangely unimpressed. Perhaps she sensed what is indeed a
fact, that luck in navigation, as in most things, favours the beginner.
For instance, a mistake somewhere in our calculations brought us as near
disaster in the next twenty-four hours as one cares to be. Taking
Madeira as our point of departure, we shaped a course for Las Palmas,
giving the intervening Salvage Islands a berth of ten miles to the
westward. We reckoned this a safe distance, considering that according
to "sailing directions" there was still more to the westward a strong
current inclining toward the African coast. Well, that current failed to
register in the particular case of the dream ship, and on top of it the
"mistake somewhere" caused a cold shiver to traverse the spine of the
helmsman when, at one o'clock of a pitch-black night, while doing a
comfortable seven knots, a mass of rock reared itself out of the sea
seemingly not more than a few hundred yards, though probably more nearly
a mile, to starboard.
It was the westernmost island of the Salvages, uninhabited, unlighted,
and this same helmsman who, as it happens, was myself, would like to
know what prevented the "mistake somewhere" from being just that trifle
bigger necessary to land us in splinters on the rocks, the fate of more
than one good ship provided with a lookout and master mariner. Surely
the luck of the beginner!
The incident gave us violently to think, and we thought again when, a
few days later, on summoning the island of Grand Canary with the magic
wand of sextant and logarithm, it failed to materialize. Had we overrun
the entire Canary Group, and were we gaily heading for the African coast
with its picturesque Riff pirates who specialize in becalmed ships, or
were we even now heading for the iron-bound coast of Grand Canary? In
the dense mist that so often shrouds this group we could not tell.
Moreover, our dead reckoning said one thing and our observations
another. They usually do.
"When in doubt, heave to," was a maxim of the Skipper's that we happened
to remember, so we hove to and waited, though for what I am not quite
clear. If it were for the mist to disperse, I am inclined to think we
should be there still. Steve and I passed the time in heated
discussions as to our whereabouts, which under the circumstances was as
futile an occupation as any we could have indulged in, but what would
you? After golf it is doubtful if there is anything more debatable than
incipient navigation. We continued to talk, and the dream ship
continued to rock idly on a heavy swell, until Peter broke the spell by
emitting a well-known squeak of excitement and pointing heavenward.
"_That_ isn't a cloud," she announced with apparent irrelevance.
It was not. It was the peak of Teneriffe towering out of the mist, to
port, like the great pyramid from the sands of Egypt.
"There you are," quoth Steve.
"Exactly," said I, though what either of us meant I have no notion.
"In the meantime," suggested Peter the practical, "don't you think we
might be getting on with it?"
On this point the master and the mate of the dream ship were agreed, and
the voyage continued.
*THE START ACROSS THE ATLANTIC*
_Visitations--pleasant, and the reverse_
[Illustration: Chapter V headpiece]
*CHAPTER V*
_Visitations--pleasant, and the reverse_
Our entry into Las Palmas savoured of a circus come to town. We were
the "act" where the music stops for effect. No one seemed to know who
we were or why we were, which after all is not surprising, and the
curious, consisting of gaping crowds on the breakwater and a
heterogeneous fleet of anything from powerful launches to frowsy
bumboats, seemed intent on finding out.
There is an immense and almost constant swell off Las Palmas, and the
performance started when, in answer to our signal, a pilot stepped
aboard, and came as near to measuring his dignified and bedizened length
on the deck as was possible without actually doing it. He was evidently
unused to dream ships in a swell. Regaining a certain amount of
equilibrium, he tottered to the mast and clung there affectionately,
until informed that we were from England, when he risked changing his
grip to shake us all warmly by the hand, and point dramatically
harbourward.
This last I took as a signal for the engine which, to my relief, "went,"
and we rounded the breakwater with the entire fleet of bumboats and
their yelling occupants in our wake. Peter was at the tiller, in
pyjamas she had not had time to change, frenziedly following the course
indicated by the pilot's outstretched arm. Steve was attempting in
halting Spanish to communicate the fact that our engine had no
"reverse," and failing utterly. And I had made the distressing
discovery that there was something amiss with our water circulation.
Above all rose the clamour of the bum-boatmen:--"Hi, washing, Senor!"
"Hi, hi, bananas!" "Hi, hi, hi...."
So the dream ship threaded the intricacies of Las Palmas's inner
harbour, missing coal hulks by a bare foot, shaving schooners and, by
means of the anchor dropped in sheer desperation, barely saving herself
from ramming the Club Nautico.
Even then our troubles were by no means at an end. A boarding party of
eternal bumboatmen broke through our defenses, and thronged the deck. In
vain we pointed out that all we needed at the moment was sleep, and that
if they had any for sale we would buy large quantities, otherwise they
must go, or be pushed. They chose to be pushed, and there was something
in the nature of a _melee_ afoot when a sleek launch came alongside and
a short, corpulent gentleman, literally glittering with gold lace, and
using a sword as a walking stick, stepped aboard. He was the chief of
the harbour police, and the effect of his august presence was magical.
The enemy retired in disorder, and our saviour, who honoured us with his
company over a glass of rum, gave us the key to peace and quiet in a
Spanish port. It consisted in presenting the law (embodied in himself)
with a trifling donation, and running the international code flag "P" up
to the mast head, after which one is at liberty to shoot any one who
comes aboard without permission. It is worth knowing, for we of the
dream ship did both these things, and from that hour suffered no further
molestation.
Unless you are a coal magnate, a ship's chandler, a banana agent, or a
consumptive, it is hard to find a reason for living at Las Palmas. It
is a dreary sort of place built on, and occasionally smothered by, sand
blown across the ocean from the Sahara, hundreds of miles distant, and
the only diversion appears to be dances and roulette at the Club
Nautico.
We of the dream ship promptly "fell" for the roulette, in company with
most of the inhabitants, until it was borne in upon us that if we "fell"
much further we should plumb the depths of our slender resources. It is
a pathetic sight to see workers, not the leisured "profitocracy" one
encounters at a place like Monte Carlo, handing over their hard-earned
week's wage to a stony-faced _croupier_, and borrowing from any one who
will lend for "just one more spin." No, we remained for the most part
well out amongst the cooler breezes of the harbour, under the
thrice-blessed squaresail which now did service as an awning--sleeping,
swimming, fishing, and again sleeping, for we had some arrears to make
up in this last respect.
Our splendid isolation, however, did not prevent us from meeting
interesting people, foremost amongst whom was the skipper of the
four-masted schooner _Dorothy_ of New York, a hard-bitten Yank if ever
there was one. He caught us clinging to his anchor chain for a breather
during the morning swim, and was treating us to an entirely new
vocabulary of invective when suddenly, and with no apparent cause, he
changed his mind and invited us aboard.
In his remarkably comfortable quarters, and standing in pools of our own
making, we discussed things in general and a bottle of Madeira in
particular.
"Waal," he observed, on learning that we were off "that funny bit of
wood yonder," and had every intention of remaining on it across the
Atlantic, "if you ain't got a gall!"
[Illustration: Swimmers at Dorothy]
From that moment the _Dorothy_ and the dream ship became "matey craft,"
though a greater contrast than between a four-masted schooner and a
twenty-three-ton cutter can scarcely be imagined. Our friend had
several grievances, and aired them, though with such cheerful profanity
as to cause us endless amusement. He had left the sea for good when he
was lured out of retirement by a stupendous sum to command the
_Dorothy_. The fact was they had no sailing masters in the States these
days, and now that they had found wind to be cheaper than coal, and were
building schooners so fast that half of them were green timber and
opened up like sieves, they could get no one to take charge--no one,
that is, but hairless boys who learnt navigation on a three-weeks'
course, and knew as much about seamanship or handling the hoboes one
ships these days as a dead-ripe lemon....
At this juncture Steve and I might have been seen to exchange guilty
glances, but I don't think we were, and the diatribe continued.
... Another thing: here was he at a port like Las Palmas, with his
entire crew, bar the mate, in a Spanish gaol through a few shore
indiscretions of the previous evening, and no one to _do_ anything about
it. There was no United States consul in Las Palmas, no, sir; what did
we think of that? There was nothing against a bit of shore joy once in
a while. It was to be expected. But when they took a man's _cook_....
He would have to see his very good friend the British Consul about it,
that was all, though the idea was abhorrent to his independent spirit.
Amongst other things he treated us to a vivid and somewhat terrifying
picture of present-day New York, and expressed the whole-souled wish
never to return. It appeared that in this barbarous spot a mere man is
at a discount. He can get nothing to drink. His pipe, cigar, or
cigarette is in imminent peril of being snatched from his mouth, and if
he chances to look sideways at a lady she arrests him on the spot. We
shivered in unison, and refilled our glasses.
Our friend dined aboard the dream ship that evening, and showed himself
to be the good fellow that he was by demonstrating short cuts in
navigation, telling us of winds and weather we should be likely to
encounter, giving us introductions to friends at distant ports,
and--listening without flinching to a clarionet solo. It is such
members of the vast fraternity of the sea that one hopes to meet again,
and so rarely does.
Another of our guests was of a very different calibre, though none the
less interesting in his way. We awoke one morning to find a sleek white
yacht of about the dream ship's tonnage anchored hard by, and flying a
silken flag of gorgeous but unknown design, which on book reference
proved to be the now-extinct emblem of the Portuguese Royalist.
By noon her owner had paid us a formal call, and at four o'clock this
amazing youth, in a natty naval uniform garnished with decorations for
various heroic deeds, was laying bare his heart in excellent English
over a cup of afternoon tea. It was good, he informed us, to see the
Blue Ensign again after what he had been through. There was something
stable about the Blue Ensign that was vastly refreshing to a homeless
exile. During the present welter of world upheaval the Portuguese
rebellions had been overlooked, but what he, a Royalist, had been
through--_what_ he had been through!
His was the only yacht in Portuguese waters during the late rebellion.
She lay in the bay of Funchal, Madeira, and in Madeira's gaol reposed,
or at any rate contrived to live, two full-blown counts, a general, and
various smaller fry, incarcerated for their political views. Could a
fellow Royalist and a yacht owner stand by and do nothing under such
circumstances? A thousand times, no! On a dark night, and in face of
sentries armed to the teeth, he had rescued them, taken them aboard his
ship, and set sail for Las Palmas without stores, water, or navigation
instruments, fearing that any such preparations would arouse suspicion.
Well, he had arrived. After incredible hardships, he had arrived, only
to have his yacht and cargo of hungry counts interned by the rascally
Spaniard! Another cup of tea? Ah, thanks ... to the CAUSE!
The Portuguese says: "A Spaniard is always a Spaniard." The Spaniard
says: "A Portuguese is always a Portuguese." Or they do at Las Palmas,
and the mere outsider can only take their respective words for it, and
draw his own conclusions.
After two weeks of idling--and cooking--we became so heartily tired of
the latter that we determined to indulge in the wild extravagance of a
cook. The process of engagement was simplicity itself. We merely
selected one of the almost constant stream of applicants for work that
visited the dream ship, duly installed him in the fo'c's'le, and left
him to it.
Our selection, or rather Peter's, as we left such things to a woman's
alleged intuition, was a venerable Maltese with a sheaf of credentials
the size of a pack of cards, and a winning if somewhat weak smile.
Thereafter, for a week, real food, though doused in olive oil, emerged
from the fo'c's'le, and we experienced the keen satisfaction after meals
of being able to hold a cigarette in one hand without a dish cloth in
the other.
This happy state of affairs continued until, following one of his
"evenings off," our cook was stricken with an illness that he ascribed
to bad meat, though the symptoms corresponded more to the effects of bad
drink. In any case, he lay writhing in his bunk, clasping various
portions of his anatomy, and declaring that he was about to die. Now,
the dream ship had a medicine chest of which she was as proud as the
eminent physician who had selected it. This personage believed in
injection rather than internal application; and no doubt he was right,
provided there was someone aboard who understood a hypodermic syringe.
But there was not. I stood beside the bunk, looking up the unhappy
man's symptoms in a ship's medical guide as they occurred, while Steve
and Peter lifted from its bed of cotton wool a glass-and-steel
instrument more like an overgrown mosquito than anything I can call to
mind. The look of it appalled me, but not so Steve. He pumped our
wretched cook so full of laudanum that he never moved an eyelid for
fifteen hours. We called his state one of merciful oblivion, and rather
prided ourselves on the achievement until it occurred to someone that we
might have killed him. Followed frantic tests with a looking-glass, and
much listening for heart-beats, until our victim was resuscitated--and
left the next day.
No, in future, and in spite of expert advice to the contrary, which
perhaps does not take the limitations of dream ships into account, I
shall in future only take the trusted remedies endeared by experience:
iodine, a good aperient and astringent, asperin, plenty of boracic lint
and bandages, and a lancet.
As though in judgment, there descended upon us in turn a plague of these
islands called Canary fever. It was our first and last illness
throughout the cruise, but it pulled us down to such an extent that
Peter and I decided to try the hills of Grand Canary as a recuperative.
A quiet little _fonda_ amongst the vines and purer airs of the highlands
was the vision that lured us into a lurching motor, and up through the
sand and cactus landscape to Fergus, where our vision was shattered as
promptly and effectually as visions usually are. There was a _fonda_,
and there were cacti, these last covered for the most part with the
cochineal beetle, the raising of which as a food dyestuff is still an
industry on Grand Canary, though chemical substitutes have almost run
the genuine article off the market. But the _fonda_ was more crowded
with guests than the cacti with cochineal, and there was no doubt as to
which were the more disturbing.
Peter and I shared a room nine by twelve, with an apology for privacy in
the form of a riddled screen between us, and mosquitoes took full
advantage of our netless beds. The _salon_ at our very door seethed
with dancing and shrill-voiced senoritas until two o'clock in the
morning, and---- But why prolong the agony? We caught the next
lurching motor back to Las Palmas, and sank gasping but grateful into
deck chairs under the awning of the dream ship.
Such a home as ours spoils one for roughing it. The infinite peace and
quiet and privacy of it make one detest all the more the bustle and
turmoil of ordinary travel. People have said to me: "But how can you
live in such restricted quarters?" My answer is: "Very easily, thank
you."
For six mortal weeks we waited at Las Palmas, that it might be fulfilled
which was spoken by the weather-prophets concerning the West Indian
hurricane season:
June, too soon.
July, stand by.
August, if you must.
September, remember.
October, all over.
And on the third of this last, reassuring month we set sail across the
Atlantic.
*THE ARRIVAL AT BRITISH WEST INDIES*
_Deep-sea thoughts--Concerning Calms--Visitors in
mid-Atlantic--Barbados and beyond_
[Illustration: Chapter VI headpiece]
*CHAPTER VI*
_Deep-sea thoughts--Concerning Calms--Visitors in
mid-Atlantic--Barbados and beyond_
The great adventure had now begun in earnest. Three thousand miles of
Atlantic Ocean lay ahead of us, holding we knew not what of new
experience, and for the third time since setting sail our undertaking
imbued us with a certain amount of awe.
At night, alone in the cockpit, one began to think. Would the drinking
water hold out? What if the chronometer broke down? Supposing---- It
is as well not to think too deeply on occasion, and the crossing of the
Atlantic in a small boat is one.
Someone has said that it is the routine of life that keeps us sane, and
I am inclined to agree. On shore, one is apt to inveigh against "the
little things that must be done"--the countless, almost mechanical
actions of a day's civilized existence--but at sea life is composed of
such details, and one is thankful for them. Making a long-splice or an
"eye," filling and trimming the lamps, washing down deck, or even
washing up dishes, all serve to keep the mind from unhealthy conjecture.