Stirling dropped his eyes and stepped to the mate's side. Staring over the rail, he raised his finger, sniffed for a second time, then declared: "She'll be clear by noon. This fog is light."
Cushner led the way forward to the ornate forecastle and Stirling glanced down through the open booby hatch, to where a row of bunks lined each side of the ship. In these bunks seamen slept with their arms over their faces and their legs extended. A molasses barrel was lashed to the heel of the foremast, and on top of this barrel stood a large pan of white bread. The entire forecastle struck Stirling as far too clean and too large for a whaler's. It was more like an expensive yacht's.
"Them's picked men!" said Cushner. "Some has been picked from the gutter and some from the boarding houses. I guess I'll wake them. It's time for both watches on deck."
The second mate lifted a belaying pin from the pinrail and pounded upon the deck like a policeman pounds on the pavement. "Rise and shine, lads!" he shouted, leaning over the companion's coaming. "We've got to pay Paddy Doyle for his boots. All out!"
Cushner listened and then repeated his tapping. "All hands on deck!" he called. "Step lively now, men! It's five bells an' th' tide is turning!"
Stirling heard protests from the sleepy crew; shoes flew across the forecastle, pans banged, growls and feeble protests rose as the two watches gathered together their clothes and attempted to dress in the dark.
"Coffee they get," said Cushner. "Coffee and eggs and plum duff and white bread and bully beef. They're lucky. In my day we chewed hardtack and drank bilge water. Whaling has changed!"
Stirling nodded, and raised his eyes to the rigging of the Pole Star, where spar varnish glistened from yards and masts, and snow-white canvas looped downward like lingerie on clotheslines. The running rigging was of new hemp. It all struck him as a dream as he turned and strode to the rail by the port-anchor davit.
"See here," he said to Cushner. "I doubt if there's a finer sea boat afloat, but how about the ice? She's sheathed, but with wood. She ought to have a steel plate forward."
The big second mate grinned. "She's a good ice ship, Stirling," he said, leaning over the rail and pointing downward. "That's teakwood and yew. There's nothing better, and it don't impede her speed to any extent. You ought to have been aboard coming up from Sandy Point—eleven point five for days at a stretch. She'll do thirteen under forced draft. She'll do two more knots with the wind abeam. That's six-day boat speed!"