Chapter VI: Off the Horn (2)

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.

(_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.