“Oh! give us some time to blow the man down!”
The yard rose a bit faster but by no means rapidly. The skipper paced the poop, cursing us all for blunderers.
“Steward!” he roared, “bring a bottle of grog!”
The “doctor” let go the rope as if it had suddenly turned red-hot, and ran for the lazaret. A smile of anticipation flitted along the line of perspiring faces. A promise of double wages for all hands would have been less effective. The resulting heave took me so by surprise that I was carried off my feet.
The cook appeared on the quarter-deck, and the skipper snatched the bottle he carried and examined it attentively. We were too far away to hear their conversation; but the yard was moving skyward by leaps and bounds. Then suddenly the lord and master of us all turned and pitched the bottle into the sea.
“My Gawd!” ran a horrified whisper along the rope. “E’s threw it overboard. ’E thinks we’re sodgerin’.”
But for the tenacity of a few of us the yard must have come down by the run.
Inspiration came again, however, for the cook ran off and returned with a second flagon. The first, it turned out, had a tiny hole in the bottom and was empty.
The topsail was quickly sheeted home and I lined up with the rest before the galley-door to drink my “three fingers” of extremely poor whiskey. Then, breaking up into smaller groups, we hoisted the “fore-and-afters,” and, when we turned in for breakfast an hour late, weak and ugly from hunger, the Glenalvon was carrying every stitch of canvas but the three royals and her cross-jack.
“At least,” I told myself, rubbing my aching arms between mouthfuls of watery “scouse,” “we’re off, and the worst is over.”