“Well—er—I’m not sure,” said the boy doubtfully, “except what I overheard the other night.” And in answer to the officer’s queries, he told him of the “spell in jail” and “if the men knew you were the man” fragments which had come to his ears through the open port. Mr. Nickerson was greatly interested. “Humph!” he commented. “Said he’d been in jail did he?” Then he straightened up with a jerk and slapped the rail with his hand and the smack made Donald jump. “I’ve got him, by thunder! I’ve got him dead to loo’ard this time!” he ejaculated. “I knew I wasn’t far out when I told him the other night I had his flag and number!” Then quietly he said, “Son, did ye ever hear the story about the ship Orkney Isles and a little ’prentice boy name of Willy McFee? No? Well, alright! Ask McLean to step aft here a moment and you skin along and see what time it is instead of yarning here. Hump yourself naow!” Donald “humped”—smiling at the young officer’s peculiar manner.
Holding on down the South American coast, the Kelvinhaugh began to prepare for the ordeal ahead. Her winter weather canvas had already been bent, and the carpenter was busy re-wedging the hatches and with his crony, the bos’n, getting the ship’s gear chocked, lashed and restowed. They went about their work with ominous head-shakings, and the ordinary seamen were beginning to exhibit signs of nervousness with the ceaseless recital of the barque’s faults and the Horn in winter, which the old-timers were forever croaking about. In the dog-watches, there was less yarning and skylarking around the fore-hatch, and oilskins, re-patched and re-oiled, hung in the sun around the fore-rigging—unmistakable forecasts of dirty weather ahead in the coming days.
In the half-deck, the boys spent their evenings yarning and playing cards—all but McKenzie, who was busy overhauling his wretched kit. Moore had a splendid outfit of everything in the way of oil-clothes and warm clothing, so he didn’t worry—neither did he offer to augment Donald’s meagre rig. Thompson and Jenkins had a miscellaneous collection of clothing sadly in need of overhaul, but they were young and thoughtless. The Horn didn’t scare them! No, by Jupiter, they were rough and tough and had hair on their chests—they would start straightening out their gear in plenty of time. When she crossed forty-five south it would be time enough to make and mend for fifty-five! So they bragged, but it was safe bragging, as they knew they’d have the captain’s slop chest to fall back on. Thompson had rounded the Horn before, but he did it in summer from Australia, and with a brave west wind astern. He’d never experienced the passage in winter, and he was not impressed. McKenzie was an “old woman” for his pains, they said, but Donald preferred to heed the advice of men like Martin and McLean and to prepare, as the bos’n and chips were preparing the ship. They weren’t doing that for nothing. Not by a long shot!
So he stitched and patched and oiled and did the best he could with his shoddy gear, and the best was not enough. He knew it, but he did not complain. One may growl about the ship, the weather, the mates and things extraneous, but lamentations about one’s bodily ills or aches, the work one has to do, a wetting or a freezing, is bad form aboard ship and receives no sympathetic hearing. “Serve you dam’ well right. What did you come to sea for?” is the invariable answer to such whines.
The barque crossed “forty-five” in a chilly blow, and for two days they had wild tussles aloft with wet, heavy canvas, and severe knockings about on flooded decks hauling on clewing-up gear or braces, downhauls and halliards. Then the “hairy chesters” began to get busy, but the time had gone when oilskins could be re-oiled and dried in the sun. The days were shortening rapidly and the sun’s warmth was becoming nullified by the chill of the high latitudes. Each knot they reeled off to the south’ard saw the sea changing from a warm blue to a frigid green, and azure skies to a gloomy lead-colored pall, solid with potential gales.
Captain Muirhead was nervous—all hands could see that. He spent more time on deck and hovered between barometer and binnacle, and when the ship came up with fifty degrees south, he ordered the royal yards sent down on deck—much to the unvoiced scorn of the mate—and the Kelvinhaugh was now reduced in canvas to nothing above her big single topgallantsails.
Nickerson sneered mentally. “How does the looney think she’s agoin’ to make her westing under these clipped kites? All right to send down yards in a light ship, but this heavy drogher.... Huh! Ef it was some of th’ Bluenosers or Saint John packets I’ve sailed in, they ratch her around under skys’ls, by Jupiter! No wonder these limejuicers never make a passage when they have these careful old women in command of them. Huh!”
They wallowed down past the Falklands in remarkably fine weather for the latitude, and headed for Cape St. John on Staten Island—easternmost sentinel to the stormy Horn. There was no doubt now of the times ahead. Snow had fallen once or twice, and ice had formed on deck and lower rigging in early morning hours, but the gales...?
“I don’t like this,” growled Martin to Donald one dog-watch, as they peered at the yellow sunset over towards the Fuegian coast. There was a long rolling sea coming up from the south’ard, with the push of the Pacific Antarctic drift, and the wind had been “knocking her off” all the afternoon, until the yards were braced “on the back-stays.” There was a chilly spite in the breeze, which was beginning to pipe up a mournful note in the wire standing rigging, and the south was a black wall, in which sea and sky merged as one. “There’s dirt acomin’ afore long ef I know the signs, but that ruddy Dutch greaser don’t know enough to strip her for it. Ef I was you youngster, I’d go’n turn in right now an’ catch up on sleep, for, mark me well, it’ll be Cape Stiff afore mornin’!”
Donald took the bos’n’s advice and, refusing to join the little game of “nap” which the half-deckers were playing for plug-tobacco stakes, he rolled into his bunk and slept, but not before he had placed his boots and oilskins in a handy place.