“I hear it, too. Is that the surf?” came from another.
“‘Is that the surf?’ Who’s that damn fool? Oh, it’s the new man. Well, maybe you’re part way excusable. Yes, that’s the surf under your lee. If ’twas light you could see it break. But don’t mind that, boy— I’ve heard it before and come away.”
“Maybe you have,” commented one unthinkingly, “but there’s not been too many that’s been near enough to hear it and got home to tell about it—not too many.”
“For God’s sake, choke that croaker, somebody! And drive her, fellows—no time to lose now.” The Skipper was all over her deck. “And stand by with the axe, you Fred, so when we have to, and I give the word, cut and we’ll run for it.”
“I s’pose she couldn’t stand the mains’l, Skipper?”
“No, John, she couldn’t—not this old hooker in this breeze. Just the extra weight of that boom outward now and over she’d flop, sure as fate. She’s thirty year old, this one. Lord, if ’twas only the Katie, wouldn’t we go skippin’ out of here! But go aloft again, John.”
In the whirl and thickness of snow they tried to follow John as he climbed the rigging, swinging and clinging, fighting his way up.
John’s voice, but too muffled to be understood, came down to them. One man jumped into the rigging and passed the word along.
“He says a ridin’ light to wind’ard—two of em.”
“To anchor are they? Make sure.”