Chapter XXVII
We are now south of Rio and working south. We are out of the latitude of
the trades, and the wind is capricious. Rain squalls and wind squalls
vex the Elsinore. One hour we may be rolling sickeningly in a dead
calm, and the next hour we may be dashing fourteen knots through the
water and taking off sail as fast as the men can clew up and lower away.
A night of calm, when sleep is well-nigh impossible in the sultry, muggy
air, may be followed by a day of blazing sun and an oily swell from the
south’ard, connoting great gales in that area of ocean we are sailing
toward–or all day long the Elsinore, under an overcast sky, royals and
sky sails furled, may plunge and buck under wind-pressure into a short
and choppy head-sea.
And all this means work for the men. Taking Mr. Pike’s judgment, they
are very inadequate, though by this time they know the ropes. He growls
and grumbles, and snorts and sneers whenever he watches them doing
anything. To-day, at eleven in the morning, the wind was so violent,
continuing in greater gusts after having come in a great gust, that Mr.
Pike ordered the mainsail taken off. The great crojack was already off.
But the watch could not clew up the mainsail, and, after much vain sing-
songing and pull-hauling, the watch below was routed out to bear a hand.
“My God!” Mr. Pike groaned to me. “Two watches for a rag like that when
half a decent watch could do it! Look at that preventer bosun of mine!”
Poor Nancy! He looked the saddest, sickest, bleakest creature I had ever
seen. He was so wretched, so miserable, so helpless. And Sundry Buyers
was just as impotent. The expression on his face was of pain and
hopelessness, and as he pressed his abdomen he lumbered futilely about,
ever seeking something he might do and ever failing to find it. He
pottered. He would stand and stare at one rope for a minute or so at a
time, following it aloft with his eyes through the maze of ropes and
stabs and gears with all the intentness of a man working out an intricate
problem. Then, holding his hand against his stomach, he would lumber on
a few steps and select another rope for study.
“Oh dear, oh dear,” Mr. Pike lamented. “How can one drive with bosuns
like that and a crew like that? Just the same, if I was captain of this
ship I’d drive ’em. I’d show ’em what drive was, if I had to lose a few
of them. And when they grow weak off the Horn what’ll we do? It’ll be
both watches all the time, which will weaken them just that much the
faster.”
Evidently this winter passage of the Horn is all that one has been led to
expect from reading the narratives of the navigators. Iron men like the
two mates are very respectful of “Cape Stiff,” as they call that
uttermost tip of the American continent. Speaking of the two mates, iron-
made and iron-mouthed that they are, it is amusing that in really serious
moments both of them curse with “Oh dear, oh dear.”
In the spells of calm I take great delight in the little rifle. I have
already fired away five thousand rounds, and have come to consider myself
an expert. Whatever the knack of shooting may be, I’ve got it. When I
get back I shall take up target practice. It is a neat, deft sport.
Not only is Possum afraid of the sails and of rats, but he is afraid of
rifle-fire, and at the first discharge goes yelping and ki-yi-ing below.
The dislike Mr. Pike has developed for the poor little puppy is
ludicrous. He even told me that if it were his dog he’d throw it
overboard for a target. Just the same, he is an affectionate,
heart-warming little rascal, and has already crept so deep into my heart
that I am glad Miss West did not accept him.
And–oh!–he insists on sleeping with me on top the bedding; a proceeding
which has scandalized the mate. “I suppose he’ll be using your
toothbrush next,” Mr. Pike growled at me. But the puppy loves my
companionship, and is never happier than when on the bed with me. Yet
the bed is not entirely paradise, for Possum is badly frightened when
ours is the lee side and the seas pound and smash against the glass
ports. Then the little beggar, electric with fear to every hair tip,
crouches and snarls menacingly and almost at the same time whimpers
appeasingly at the storm-monster outside.
“Father knows the sea,” Miss West said to me this afternoon. “He
understands it, and he loves it.”
“Or it may be habit,” I ventured.
She shook her head.
“He does know it. And he loves it. That is why he has come back to it.
All his people before him were sea folk. His grandfather, Anthony West,
made forty-six voyages between 1801 and 1847. And his father, Robert,
sailed master to the north-west coast before the gold days and was
captain of some of the fastest Cape Horn clippers after the gold
discovery. Elijah West, father’s great-grandfather, was a privateersman
in the Revolution. He commanded the armed brig New Defence. And, even
before that, Elijah’s father, in turn, and Elijah’s father’s father, were
masters and owners on long-voyage merchant adventures.
“Anthony West, in 1813 and 1814, commanded the David Bruce, with
letters of marque. He was half-owner, with Gracie & Sons as the other
half-owners. She was a two-hundred-ton schooner, built right up in
Maine. She carried a long eighteen-pounder, two ten-pounders, and ten
six-pounders, and she sailed like a witch. She ran the blockade off
Newport and got away to the English Channel and the Bay of Biscay. And,
do you know, though she only cost twelve thousand dollars all told, she
took over three hundred thousand dollars of British prizes. A brother of
his was on the Wasp.
“So, you see, the sea is in our blood. She is our mother. As far back
as we can trace all our line was born to the sea.” She laughed and went
on. “We’ve pirates and slavers in our family, and all sorts of
disreputable sea-rovers. Old Ezra West, just how far back I don’t
remember, was executed for piracy and his body hung in chains at
Plymouth.
“The sea is father’s blood. And he knows, well, a ship, as you would
know a dog or a horse. Every ship he sails has a distinct personality
for him. I have watched him, in high moments, and seen him think. But
oh! the times I have seen him when he does not think–when he feels and
knows everything without thinking at all. Really, with all that
appertains to the sea and ships, he is an artist. There is no other word
for it.”
“You think a great deal of your father,” I remarked.
“He is the most wonderful man I have ever known,” she replied. “Remember,
you are not seeing him at his best. He has never been the same since
mother’s death. If ever a man and woman were one, they were.” She broke
off, then concluded abruptly. “You don’t know him. You don’t know him
at all.”
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