Day after day of huge sea and swell, mountainous in calm or storm. Leaden-grey skies, with a brief glint of sunshine now and then—for it was nominally summer time in low latitudes. Days of gloomy calm, presage of a fiercer blow, when the Old Man (Orcadian philosopher that he was) caught and skilfully stuffed the great-winged albatross that flounders helplessly when the wind fails. Days of strong breezes, when we tried to beat to windward under a straining main-to'gal'nsail; ever a west wind to thwart our best endeavours, and week-long gales, that we rode out, hove-to in the trough of overwhelming seas, lurching to leeward under low canvas.
We had become sailors in earnest. We had forgotten the way of steady trades and flying-fish weather, and, when the wind howled a whole gale, we slapped our oilskin-clad thighs and lied cheerfully to each other of greater gales we had been in. Even Wee Laughlin and M'Innes were turned to some account and talked of sail and spars as if they had never known the reek of steamer smoke. In the half-deck we had little comfort during watch below. At every lurch of the staggering barque, a flood of water poured through the crazy planking, and often we were washed out by an untimely opening of the door. Though at heart we would rather have been porters at a country railway station, we put a bold front to the hard times and slept with our wet clothes under us that they might be the less chilly for putting on at eight bells. We had seldom a stitch of dry clothing, and the galley looked like a corner of Paddy's market whenever McEwan, the 'gallus' cook, took pity on our sodden misery.
In the forecastle the men were better off. Collins had rigged an affair of pipes to draw the smoke away, and it was possible, in all but the worst of weather, to keep the bogie-stove alight. We would gladly have shifted to these warmer quarters, but our parents had paid a premium for privileged berthing, and the Old Man would not hear of our flitting. Happily, we had little darkness to add to the misery of our passage, for the sun was far south, and we had only three hours of night. Yet, when the black squalls of snow and sleet rolled up from the westward, there was darkness enough. At times a flaw in the wind—a brief veering to the south—would let us keep the ship travelling to the westward. All hands would be in high spirits; we would go below at the end of our watches, making light of sodden bedclothes, heartened that at last our 'slant' had come. Alas for our hopes! Before our watch was due we would be rudely wakened. "All hands wear ship"—the dreaded call, and the Mate thundering at the half-deck door, shouting orders in a threatening tone that called for instant spur. Then, at the braces, hanging to the ropes in a swirl of icy water, facing up to the driving sleet and bitter spray, that cut and stung like a whiplash. And when at last the yards were laid to the wind, and the order 'down helm' was given, we would spring to the rigging for safety, and, clinging desperately, watch the furious sweep of a towering 'greybeard' over the barque, as she came to the wind and lay-to.
Wild, heart-breaking work! Only the old hands, 'hard cases' like Martin and Welsh John and the bo'sun, were the stoics, and there was some small comfort in their "Whoo! This ain't nuthin'! Ye sh'd a' bin shipmates with me in the ol' Boryallus!" (Or some such ancient craft.) "Them wos 'ard times!"
Twice we saw Diego Ramirez and the Iledefonsos, with an interval of a fortnight between the sightings—a cluster of bleak rocks, standing out of surf and broken water, taking the relentless battery of huge seas that swept them from base to summit. Once, in clear weather, we marked a blue ridge of land far to the norrard, and Old Martin and Vootgert nearly came to blows as to whether it was Cape Horn or the False Cape.
Fighting hard for every inch of our laboured progress, doubling back, crossing, recrossing (our track on the old blue-back chart was a maze of lines and figures) we won our way to 70° W., and there, in the hardest gale of the passage, we were called on for tribute, for one more to the toll of sailor lives claimed by the rugged southern gateman.
All day the black ragged clouds had swept up from the south-west, the wind and sea had increased hourly in violence. At dusk we had shortened sail to topsails and reefed foresail. But the Old Man hung on to his canvas as the southing wind allowed us to go 'full and by' to the nor'-west. Hurtling seas swept the decks, tearing stout fittings from their lashings. The crazy old half-deck seemed about to fetch loose with every sea that crashed aboard. From stem to stern there was no shelter from the growing fury of the gale; but still the Old Man held to his course to make the most of the only proper 'slant' in six weary weeks.
At midnight the wind was howling slaughter, and stout Old Jock, dismayed at last at the furious sea upreared against him, was at last forced to lay her to. In a piping squall of snow and sleet we set to haul up the foresail. Even the nigger could not find heart to rouse more than a mournful i—o—ho at the buntlines, as we slowly dragged the heavy slatting canvas to the yard. Intent on the work, we had no eye to the weather, and only the Captain and steersman saw the sweep of a monster sea that bore down on us, white-crested and curling.
"Stand by," yelled the Old Man. "Hang on, for your lives, men! Christ! Hold hard there!"
Underfoot we felt the ship falter in swing—an ominous check in her lift to the heaving sea. Then out of the blackness to windward a swift towering crest reared up—a high wall of moving water, winged with leagues of tempest at its back. It struck us sheer on the broadside, and shattered its bulk aboard in a whelming torrent, brimming the decks with a weight that left no life in the labouring barque. We were swept to leeward at the first shock, a huddled mass of writhing figures, and dashed to and fro with the sweep of the sea. Gradually, as the water cleared, we came by foothold again, sorely bruised and battered.