|
STRANGE TO SAY, IN SPITE of the general foreboding, nothing
of especial moment happened on the Ghost. We ran on to the north
and west till we raised the coast of Japan and picked up with
the great seal herd. Coming from no man knew where in the illimitable
Pacific, it was traveling north on its annual migration to the
rookeries of Bering Sea. And north we traveled with it, ravaging
and destroying, flinging the naked carcasses to the shark, and
salting down the skins, so that they might later adorn the fair
shoulders of the women of the cities.
It was wanton slaughter, and all for woman's sake. No man ate
of the seal-meat or the oil. After a good day's killing I have
seen our decks covered with hides and bodies, slippery with fat
and blood, the scuppers running red; masts, ropes, and rails splattered
high with the sanguinary color; and the men, like butchers plying
their trade, naked and red of arm and hand, hard at work with
ripping- and flensing-knives, removing the skins from the pretty
sea-creatures they had killed.
It was my task to tally the pelts as they came aboard from
the boats, to oversee the skinning, and afterward the cleansing
of the decks and bringing things shipshape again. It was not pleasant
work,- my soul and my stomach revolted at it,- and yet, in a way,
this handling and directing of many men was good for me. It developed
what little executive ability I possessed, and I was aware of
a toughening or hardening which I was undergoing and which could
not be anything but wholesome for 'Sissy' Van Weyden.
One thing I was beginning to feel, and that was that I could
never again be quite the same man I had been. While my hope and
faith in human life still survived Wolf Larsen's destructive criticism,
he had nevertheless been a cause of change in minor matters. He
had opened up for me the world of the real, of which I had known
virtually nothing, and from which I had always shrunk. I had learned
to look more closely at life as it is lived, to recognize that
there were such things as facts in the world; to emerge from the
realm of mind and idea, and to place certain values on the concrete
and objective phases of existence.
I saw more of Wolf Larsen than ever when we had gained the
grounds; for when the weather was fair and we were in the midst
of the herd, all hands were away in the boats, and left on board
were only he and I, and Thomas Mugridge, who did not count. But
there was no play about it. The six boats, spreading out fanwise
from the schooner until the first weather boat and the last lee
boat were anywhere from ten to twenty miles apart, cruised along
a straight course over the sea till nightfall or bad weather drove
them in. It was our duty to sail the Ghost well to leeward of
the last lee boat, so that all the boats would have fair wind
to run for us in case of squalls for threatening weather.
It is no slight matter for two men, particularly when a stiff
wind has sprung up, to handle a vessel like the Ghost, steering,
keeping lookout for the boats, and setting or taking in sail,
so it devolved upon me to learn, and learn quickly. Steering I
picked up easily, but running aloft to the crosstrees, and swinging
my whole, weight by my arms when I left the ratlines and climbed
still higher, was more difficult. This, too, I learned, and quickly,
for I felt somehow a wild desire to vindicate myself in Wolf Larsen's
eyes, to prove my right to live in ways other than of the mind.
Nay, the time came when I took joy in the run to the masthead,
and in the clinging on by my legs at that precarious height while
I swept the sea with the glasses in search of the boats.
I remember one beautiful day, when the boats left early and
the reports of the hunters' guns grew dim and distant and died
away as they scattered far and wide over the sea. There was just
the faintest wind from the westward; but it breathed its last
by the time we managed to get to leeward of the last lee boat.
One by one- I was at the masthead and saw- the six boats disappeared
over the bulge of the earth as they followed the seal into the
west. We lay, scarcely rolling on the placid sea, unable to follow.
Wolf Larsen was apprehensive. The barometer was down, and the
sky to the east did not please him. He studied it with unceasing
vigilance.
'If she comes out of there,' he said, 'hard and snappy, putting
us to windward of the boats, it's likely there'll be empty bunks
in steerage and f'c's'le.'
By eleven o'clock the sea had became glass. By midday, though
we were well up in the northerly latitudes, the heat was sickening.
There was no freshness in the air. It was sultry and oppressive,
reminding me of what the old Californians term 'earthquake weather.'
There was something ominous about it, and in intangible ways one
was made to feel that the worst was about to come. Slowly the
whole eastern sky filled with clouds that overtowered us like
some black sierra of the infernal regions. So clearly could one
see canon, gorge, and precipice, and the shadows that lay therein,
that one looked unconsciously for the white surf-line and bellowing
caverns where the sea charges forever on the land. And still we
rocked gently, and there was no wind.
'It's no squall,' Wolf Larsen said. 'Old Mother Nature's going
to get up on her hind legs and howl for all that's in her, and
it'll keep up jumping, Hump, to pull through with half our boats.
You'd better run up and loosen the topsails.'
'But if it is going to howl, and there are only two of us?'
I asked, a note of protest in my voice.
'Why, we've got to make the best of the first of it and run
down to our boats before our canvas is ripped out of us. After
that I don't give a rap what happens. The sticks'll stand it,
and you and I will have to, though we've plenty cut out for us.'
Still the calm continued. We ate dinner, a hurried and anxious
meal for me, with eighteen men abroad on the sea and beyond the
bulge of the earth, and with that heaven-rolling mountain range
of clouds moving slowly down upon us. Wolf Larsen did not seem
affected, however, though I noticed, when we returned to the deck,
a slight twitching of the nostrils, a perceptible quickness of
movement. His face was stern, the lines of it had grown hard,
and yet in his eyes- blue, clear blue this day- there was a strange
brilliancy, a bright, scintillating light. It struck me that he
was joyous in a ferocious sort of way; that he was glad there
was an impending struggle; that he was thrilled and upborne with
knowledge that one of the great moments of living, when the tide
of life surges up in flood, was upon him.
Once, and unwitting that he did so or that I saw, he laughed
aloud mockingly and defiantly at the advancing storm. I see him
yet, standing there like a pygmy out of the 'Arabian Nights' before
the huge front of some malignant jinnee. He was daring destiny,
and he was unafraid.
He walked to the galley.
'Cooky,' I heard him say, 'by the time you've finished pots
and pans you'll be wanted on deck. Stand ready for a call.'
'Hump,' he said, becoming cognizant of the fascinated gaze
I bent upon him, 'this beats whiskey, and is where your Omar misses.
I think he only half lived, after all.'
The western half of the sky had by now grown murky. The sun
had dimmed and faded out of sight. It was two in the afternoon,
and a ghostly twilight, shot through by wandering purplish lights,
had descended upon us, and Wolf Larsen's face glowed in the purplish
light. We lay in the midst of an unearthly quiet, while all about
us were signs and omens of oncoming sound and movement. The sultry
heat had become unendurable. The sweat was standing on my forehead,
and I could feel it trickling down my nose. I felt as though I
should faint, and reached out to the rail for support.
And then, just then, the faintest possible whisper of air passed
by. It was from the east, and like a whisper it came and went.
The drooping canvas was not stirred, and yet my face had felt
the air and been cooled.
'Cooky,' Wolf Larsen called in a low voice (Thomas Mugridge
turned a pitiable, scared face), 'let go that fore-boom- tackle
and pass it across, and when she's willing let go the sheet and
come in snug with the tackle. And if you make a mess of it, it
will be the last you ever make. Understand?'
'Mr. Van Weyden, stand by to pass the head-sails over. Then
jump for the topsails and spread them quick as God'll let you-
the quicker you do it, the easier you'll find it. As for Cooky,
if he isn't lively, bat him between the eyes.'
I was aware of the compliment and pleased in that no threat
had accompanied my instructions. We were lying head to northwest,
and it was his intention to jibe over with the first puff.
'We'll have the breeze on our quarter,' he explained to me.
'By the last guns the boats were bearing away slightly to the
south'ard.'
He turned and walked aft to the wheel. I went forward and took
my station at the jibs. Another whisper of wind, and another,
passed by. The canvas flapped lazily.
'Thank Gawd she's not comin' all of a bunch, Mr. Van Weyden!'
was the Cockney's fervent ejaculation.
And I was indeed thankful, for I had by this time learned enough
to know, with all our canvas spread, what disaster in such event
awaited us. The whispers of wind became puffs, the sails filled,
the Ghost moved. Wolf Larsen put the wheel hard up to port, and
we began to pay off. The wind was now dead astern, muttering and
puffing stronger and stronger, and my head-sails were pounding
lustily. I did not see what went on elsewhere, though I felt the
sudden surge and heel of the schooner as the wind-pressures changed
to the jibing of the fore-and main-sails. My hands were full with
the flying jib, jib, and staysail, and by the time this part of
my task was accomplished the Ghost was leaping into the southwest,
the wind on her quarter and all her sheets to starboard. Without
pausing for breath, though my heart was beating like a trip-hammer
from my exertions, I sprang to the topsails, and before the wind
had become too strong we had them fairly set and were coiling
down. Then I went aft for orders.
Wolf Larsen nodded approval and relinquished the wheel to me.
The wind strengthening steadily and the sea rising for an hour
I steered, each moment becoming more difficult. I had not the
experience to steer at the gait we were going on a quartering
course.
'Now take a run up with the glasses and raise some of the boats.
We've made at least ten knots, and we're going twelve or thirteen
now. The old girl knows how to walk. Might as well get some of
that head-sail off of her,' Larsen added, and turned to Mugridge:
'Cooky, run down that flying jib and staysail, and make the downhauls
good and fast.'
I contented myself with the fore-crosstrees, some seventy feet
above the deck. As I searched the vacant stretch of water before
me, I comprehended thoroughly the need for haste if we were to
recover any of our men. Indeed, as I gazed at the heavy sea through
which we were running, I doubted that there was a boat afloat.
It did not seem possible that so frail craft could survive such
stress of wind and water.
I could not feel the full force of the wind, for we were running
with it, but from my lofty perch I looked down as though outside
the Ghost and apart from her, and saw the shape of her outlined
sharply against the foaming sea as she tore along instinct with
life. Sometimes she would lift and send across some great wave,
burying her starboard rail from view and covering her deck to
the hatches with the boiling ocean. At such moments, starting
from a windward roll, I would go flying through the air with dizzying
swiftness, as though I clung to the end of a huge, inverted pendulum,
the arc of which, between the greater rolls, must have been seventy
feet or more. Once the terror this giddy sweep overpowered me,
and for a while I clung on, hand and foot, weak and trembling,
unable to search the sea for the missing boats or to behold aught
of the sea but that which roared beneath and strove to overwhelm
the Ghost.
But the thought of the men in the midst of it steadied me,
and in my quest for them I forgot myself. For an hour I saw nothing
but the naked, desolate sea. And then, where a vagrant shaft of
sunlight struck the ocean and turned its surface to wrathful silver,
I caught a small black speck thrust skyward for an instant and
swallowed up. I waited patiently. Again the tiny point of black
projected itself through the wrathful blaze, a couple of points
off our port bow. I did not attempt to shout, but communicated
the news to Wolf Larsen by waving my arm. He changed the course,
and I signaled affirmation when the speck showed dead ahead.
It grew larger, and so swiftly that for the first time I fully
appreciated the speed of our flight. Wolf Larsen motioned for
me to come down, and when I stood beside him at the wheel he gave
me instructions for heaving to.
'Expect all hell to break loose,' he cautioned me, 'but don't
mind it. Yours is to do your own work and to have Cooky stand
by the fore-sheet.'
I managed to make my way forward, but there was little choice
of sides, for the weather rail seemed buried as often as the lee.
Having instructed Thomas Mugridge as to what he was to do, I clambered
into the fore rigging a few feet. The boat was now very close,
and I could make out plainly that it was lying head to wind and
sea and dragging on its mast and sail, which had been thrown overboard
and made to serve as a sea-anchor. The three men were bailing.
Each rolling mountin whelmed them from view, and I would wait
with sickening anxiety, fearing that they would never appear again.
Then, and with black suddenness, the boat would shoot clear through
the foaming crest, bow pointed to the sky and the whole length
of her bottom showing, wet and dark, till she seemed on end. There
would be a fleeting glimpse of the three men flinging water in
frantic haste, when she would topple over and fall into the yawning
valley, bow down and showing her full inside length to the stern
upreared almost directly above the bow. Each time that she reappeared
was a recurrent miracle.
The Ghost suddenly changed her course, keeping away, and it
came to me with a shock that Wolf Larsen was giving up the rescue
as impossible. Then I realized that he was preparing to heave
to, and dropped to the deck to be in readiness. We were now dead
before the wind, the boat far away and abreast of us. I felt an
abrupt easing of the schooner, a loss for the moment of all strain
and pressure coupled with a swift acceleration of speed. She was
rushing around on her heel into the wind.
As she arrived at right-angles to the sea, the full force of
the wind, from which we had hitherto run away, caught us. I was
unfortunately and ignorantly facing it. It stood up against me
like a wall, filling my lungs with air which I could not expel.
And as I choked and strangled, and as the Ghost wallowed for an
instant, broadside on and rolling straight over and far into the
wind, I beheld a huge sea rise far above my head. I turned aside,
caught my breath, and looked again. The wave overtopped the Ghost,
and I gazed sheer up and into it. A shaft of sunlight smote the
over-curl, and I caught a glimpse of translucent, rushing green,
backed by a milky smother of foam.
Then it descended, pandemonium broke loose, everything happened
at once. I was struck a crushing, stunning blow, nowhere in particular
and yet everywhere. My hold had been broken loose, I was under
water, and the thought passed through my mind that this was the
terrible thing of which I had heard, the being swept in the trough
of the sea. My body struck and pounded as it was dashed helplessly
along and turned over and over, and when I could hold my breath
no longer I breathed the stinging salt water into my lungs. But
through it all I clung to the one idea- I must get the jib backed
over to windward. I had no fear of death. I had no doubt but that
I should come through somehow. And as this idea of fulfilling
Wolf Larsen's order persisted in my dazed consciousness, I seemed
to see him standing at the wheel in the midst of the wild welter,
pitting his will against the will of the storm and defying it.
I brought up violently against what I took to be the rail,
breathed, and breathed the sweet air again. I tried to rise, but
struck my head, and was knocked back on hands and knees. By some
freak of the waters I had been swept clear under the forecastle
head and into the eyes. As I scrambled out on all fours, I passed
over the body of Thomas Mugridge, who lay in a groaning heap.
There was no time to investigate. I must get the jib backed over.
When I emerged on deck it seemed that the end of everything
had come. On all sides there was a rending and crashing of wood
and steel and canvas. The Ghost was being wrenched and torn to
fragments. The foresail and foretopsail, emptied of the wind by
the maneuver, and with no one to bring in the sheet in time, were
thundering into ribbons, the heavy boom thrashing and splintering
from rail to rail. The air was thick with flying wreckage, detached
ropes and stays were hissing and coiling like snakes, and down
through it all crashed the gaff of the foresail.
The spar could not have missed me by many inches, while it
spurred me to action. Perhaps the situation was not hopeless.
I remembered Wolf Larsen's caution. He had expected 'all hell
to break loose,' and here it was. And where was he? I caught sight
of him toiling at the mainsheet, heaving it in and flat with his
tremendous muscles, the stern of the schooner lifted high in the
air, and his body outlined against a white surge of sea sweeping
past. All this and more- a whole world of chaos and wreck- in
possibly fifteen seconds I had seen and heard and grasped.
I did not stop to see what had become of the small boat, but
sprang to the jibsheet. The jib itself was beginning to slap,
partly filling and emptying with sharp reports; but with a turn
of the sheet, and the application of my whole strength each time
it slapped, I slowly backed it. This I know: I did my best. Either
the downhauls had been carelessly made fast by Mugridge, or else
the pins carried away, for, while I pulled till I burst open the
ends of all my fingers, the flying jib and staysail filled and
fluttered with the wind, split their cloths apart, and thundered
into nothingness.
Still I pulled, holding what I gained each time with a double
turn until the next slap gave me more. Then the sheet gave with
greater ease, and Wolf Larsen was beside me, heaving in alone
while I was busied taking up the slack.
'Make fast,' he shouted, 'and come on!'
As I followed him, I noted that, in spite of wrack and ruin,
a rough order obtained. The Ghost was hove to. She was still in
working order, and she was still working. Though the rest of her
sails were gone, the jib, backed to windward, and the mainsail,
hauled down flat, were themselves holding, and holding her bow
to the furious sea as well.
I looked for the boat, and, while Wolf Larsen cleared the boat-tackles,
saw it lift to leeward on a big sea and not a score of feet away.
And, so nicely had he made his calculation, we drifted fairly
down upon it, so that nothing remained to do but hook the tackles
to each end and hoist it aboard. But this was not done so easily
as it is written.
In the bow was Kerfoot, Oofty-Oofty in the stern, and Kelly
amidships. As we drifted closer, the boat would rise on a wave
while we sank in the trough, till, almost straight above me, I
could see the heads of the three men craned overside and looking
down. Then, the next moment, we would lift and soar upward while
they sank far down beneath us. It seemed incredible that the next
surge should not crush the Ghost down upon the tiny eggshell.
But, at the right moment, I passed the tackle to the Kanaka,
while Wolf Larsen did the same thing forward to Kerfoot. Both
tackles were hooked in a trice, and the three men, deftly timing
the roll, made a simultaneous leap aboard the schooner. As the
Ghost rolled her side out of water, the boat was lifted snugly
against her, and before the return roll came we had heaved it
in over the side and turned it bottom up on the deck. I noticed
blood spouting from Kerfoot's left hand. In some way the third
finger had been crushed to a pulp. But he gave no sign of pain,
and with his single right hand helped us lash the boat in its
place.
'Stand by to let that jib over, you Oofty,' Wolf Larsen commanded,
the very second we had finished with the boat. 'Kelly, come aft
and slack off the mainsheet. You, Kerfoot, go for'ard and see
what's become of Cooky. Mr. Van Weyden, run aloft again, and cut
away any stray stuff in your way.'
And having commanded, he went aft, with his peculiar tigerish
leaps, to the wheel. While I toiled up the fore-shrouds the Ghost
slowly paid off. This time, as we went into the trough of the
sea and were swept, there were no sails to carry away. And halfway
to the crosstrees, and flattened against the rigging by the full
force of the wind, so that it would have been impossible for me
to have fallen, with the Ghost almost on her beam-ends, and the
masts parallel with the water, I looked, not down, but at right
angles from the perpendicular, to the deck of the Ghost. But I
saw not the deck, but where the deck should have been, for it
was buried beneath a wild tumbling of water. Out of this water
I could see the two masts rising, and that was all. The Ghost,
for the moment, was buried beneath the sea. As she squared off
more and more, escaping from the side pressure, she righted herself
and broke her deck, like a whale's back, through the ocean surface.
Then we raced, and wildly, across the wild sea, the while I
hung like a fly in the crosstrees and searched for the other boats.
In half an hour I sighted the second one, swamped and bottom up,
to which were desperately clinging Jock Horner, fat Louis, and
Johnson. This time I remained aloft, and Wolf Larsen succeeded
in heaving to without being swept. As before, we drifted down
upon the boat. Tackles were made fast and lines flung to the men,
who scrambled aboard like monkeys. The boat itself was crushed
and splintered against the schooner's side as it came inboard;
but the wreck was securely lashed, for it could be patched and
made whole again.
Once more the Ghost bore away before the storm, this time so
submerging herself that for some seconds I thought she would never
reappear. Even the wheel, quite a deal higher than the waist,
was covered and swept again and again. At such moments I felt
strangely alone with God, and watching the chaos of his wrath.
And then the wheel would reappear, and Wolf Larsen's broad shoulders,
his hands gripping the spokes and holding the schooner to the
course of his will, himself an earth-god, dominating the storm,
flinging its descending waters from him, and riding it to his
own ends. And oh, the marvel of it, the marvel of it, that tiny
men should live and breathe and work, and drive so frail a contrivance
of wood and cloth through so tremendous an elemental strife!
As before, the Ghost swung out of the trough, lifting her deck
again out of the sea, and dashed before the howling blast. It
was now half-past five, and half an hour later, when the last
of the day lost itself in a dim and furious twilight, I sighted
a third boat. It was bottom up, and there was no sign of its crew.
Wolf Larsen repeated his maneuver, holding off and then rounding
up to windward and drifting down upon it. But this time he missed
by forty feet, the boat passing astern.
'No. 4 boat!' Oofty-Oofty cried, his keen eyes reading its
number in the one second when it lifted clear of the foam and
upside down.
It was Henderson's boat, and with him had been lost Holyoak
and Williams, another of the deep-water crowd. Lost they indubitably
were; but the boat remained, and Wolf Larsen made one more reckless
effort to recover it. I had come down to the deck, and I saw Horner
and Kerfoot vainly protest against the attempt.
'By God, I'll not be robbed of my boat by any storm that ever
blew out of hell!' he shouted, and though we four stood with our
heads together that we might hear, his voice seemed faint and
far, as though removed from us an immense distance.
'Mr. Van Weyden,' he cried, and I heard through the tumult
as one might hear a whisper, 'stand by that jib with Johnson and
Oofty! The rest of you tail aft to the main-sheet! Lively now,
or I'll sail you all into kingdom come! Understand?'
And when he put the wheel hard over and the Ghost's bow swung
off, there was nothing for the hunters to do but obey and make
the best of a risky chance. How great the risk I realized when
I was once more buried beneath the pounding seas and clinging
for life to the pin-rail at the foot of the foremast. My fingers
were torn loose, and I was swept across to the side and over the
side into the sea. I could not swim, but before I could sink I
was swept back again. A strong hand gripped me, and when the Ghost
finally emerged I found that I owed my life to Johnson. I saw
him looking anxiously about him, and noted that Kelly, who had
come forward at the last moment, was missing.
This time, having missed the boat, and not being in the same
position as in the previous instances, Wolf Larsen was compelled
to resort to a different maneuver. Running off before the wind
with everything to starboard, he came about and returned close-hauled
on the port tack.
'Grand!' Johnson shouted in my ear, as we successfully came
through the attendant deluge; and I knew he referred, not to Wolf
Larsen's seamanship, but to the performance of the Ghost herself.
It was now so dark that there was no sign of the boat; but
Wolf Larsen held back through the frightful turmoil as if guided
by unerring instinct. This time, though we were continually half-buried,
there was no trough in which to be swept, and we drifted squarely
down upon the upturned boat, badly smashing it as it was heaved
inboard.
Two hours of terrible work followed, in which all hands of
us- two hunters, three sailors, Wolf Larsen, and I- reefed, first
one and then the other, the jib and mainsail. Hove to under this
short canvas, our decks were comparatively free of water, while
the Ghost bobbed and ducked among the combers like a cork.
I had burst open the ends of my fingers at the very first,
and during the reefing I had worked with tears of pain running
down my cheeks. And when all was done, I gave up like a woman
and rolled. upon the deck in the agony of exhaustion.
In the meantime, Thomas Mugridge, like a drowned rat, was being
dragged out from under the forecastle head, where he had cravenly
ensconced himself. I saw him pulled aft to the cabin, and noted
with a shock of surprise that the galley had disappeared. A clean
space of deck showed where it had stood.
In the cabin I found all hands assembled, sailors as well,
and while coffee was being cooked over the small stove we drank
whiskey and crunched hardtack. Never in my life had food been
so welcome, and never had hot coffee tasted so good. So violently
did the Ghost pitch and toss and tumble that it was impossible
for even the sailors to move about without holding on, and several
times, after a cry of 'Now she takes it!' we were heaped upon
the wall of the port cabin as though it had been the deck.
'To- with a lookout,' I heard Wolf Larsen say when we had eaten
and drunk our fill. 'There's nothing can be done on deck. If anything's
going to run us down, we couldn't get out of its way. Turn in,
all hands, and get some sleep.'
The sailors slipped forward, setting the side-lights as they
went, while the two hunters remained to sleep in the cabin, it
not being deemed advisable to open the slide to the steerage companionway.
Wolf Larsen and I, between us, cut off Kerfoot's crushed finger
and sewed up the stump. Mugridge, who, during all the time he
had been compelled to cook and serve coffee and keep the fire
going, had complained of internal pains, now swore that he had
a broken rib or two. On examination we found that he had three.
But his case was deferred to next day, principally for the reason
that I did not know anything about broken ribs, and would first
have to read it up.
'I don't think it was worth it,' I said to Wolf Larsen, 'a
broken boat for Kelly's life.'
'But Kelly didn't amount to much,' was the reply. 'Good night.'
After all that had passed, suffering intolerable anguish in
my finger-ends, and with three boats missing, to say nothing of
the wild capers the Ghost was cutting, I would have thought it
impossible to sleep. But my eyes must have closed the instant
my head touched the pillow, and in utter exhaustion I slept throughout
the night, the while the Ghost, lonely and undirected, fought
her way through the storm.
|
