The boy nodded and grinned stoically. “Think I’ve bust a ‘slat,’ sir!”—using West Coast slang. “Got hove down on wheel ... left side ... when sea hit her that time.” Nickerson shoved back the hatch. “Olsen! Relieve the wheel!” And when he came up he motioned to Donald to go down into the cabin.
When McKenzie was divested of his upper clothing, examination revealed an ugly bruise just below the heart. With Thompson and Chubby holding the boy from sliding off the locker, the skipper examined the spot, tenderly feeling the bruise with his fingers. “You sure have, son!” he murmured. “Two slats are sprung, me son! Waal, can’t be helped, but ye’ll do no deck work or steering for a spell, boy. You’ve done yer trick, anyway, so we’ll doctor ye up without kickin’!” And he first proceeded to doctor Donald by giving him a stiff dose of salts!
“Ugh!” protested McKenzie after he had swallowed the nauseous dose. “Is this a sailor’s cure-all? If a man breaks a leg or a rib, why should he be dosed with this muck?”
Nickerson laughed. “It may seem unnecessary, but it ain’t, for the salts will put your system into a condition which will help the bones to knit. There’s good medical logic in that, son!” Dosed, rubbed with liniment and bandaged, Donald was shored by pillows and rolled up blankets into a cabin bunk and ordered to remain there for the rest of the day.
“Durned plucky kid!” remarked the skipper to Thompson.
“Always was,” answered the other. “Game to the core! Good stuff in him! Always plays cricket!” An odd British Public School expression, the latter. Fulsome praise, truly, from two such men—English and Canadian master-seamen!
Flying along on the wings of the wind the Helen Starbuck made brave running of it under the reefed foresail, and when Nickerson managed to get a noon sight in spite of successive squalls and sliding decks, he figured out the ship’s position and remarked gleefully to Donald, “She’s run ahead of the log, son! We’ll haul her up this afternoon. Cape Stiff’ll be in sight off the port bow in a while. She’s run sixty miles in four hours—good travelling! Thought I sighted the Ramirez rocks at eight this morning ... to th’ norrad. Old Man Horn should be loomin’ up from th’ riggin’ naow ef it’s anyways clear inshore.” Cape Horn in sight! The storied Stormy Horn—locale of a thousand epics of the sea since Schouten and Drake braved its tempestuous corner. “’Round Cape Horn!” A sailor’s boast—conferring a brevet rank on the man who had gone through the mill off Cape Stiff! Donald’s imagination thrilled at the thought of viewing the wind-and-wave-beaten milestone at the foot of the world. “I’d like to see it, sir,” he pleaded. “Call me when it is sighted, please!”
Nickerson laughed. “Waal, son, ye’re more eager than I am. I wouldn’t care a cuss ef I never saw it. Ef it was old Cape Sable or Nigger Cape or Sambro or Eastville Heads, naow! Why, I’d jump to the spreaders for a squint, but Cape Stiff? Ugh!” And he spat disgustedly. He buttoned up his oilcoat and clambered on deck, and a minute or two later Donald could hear his voice. “Aye ... to th’ norrad ... high peak with smaller ones. See it? Aye ... alright.” The companion hatch was shoved back and Donald was out of his bunk and pulling on his boots when the captain came down. “Hell’s main hatch is in sight,” he cried with a laugh. “Where they brew the gales and sailor’s misery.... Lemme help ye with yer coat. It ain’t rainin’ naow an’ th’ sun’s aout. I’ll bowse ye up on th’ cabin roof.”
About eight miles distant, the Ultima Thule of the South American continent reared its hoary head—a pinnacle of weather-worn granite, which, with the lower hills of Horn Island and the land behind, made the whole appear like a crouching lion facing the west. It stood clearly defined for a space—blue against the rain and mist behind and dull red where its northern slopes caught the sun—a monument of strenuous endeavour; a monolithic memorial to seamen’s a courage and suffering, and the bones of ships and men in the waters below. Around its splintered base the mighty combers of a world-around wind-hounding smashed themselves in acres of foam, roaring and hissing in sullen fury at the implacability of the rock which forever bars their passage. Tremendous! Inspiring! Irresistible! The storied, stormy Horn!