“I shall have to take the cursed ship out to-morrow,” said he. “I don’t know how to do it, any more than the dead. And I can’t understand the book. I may have to sail close-hauled, large, quartering, or afore the wind, and how am I to know where the blessed wind will be to-morrow? I can’t remember the directions for each. And the least thing you do wrong, she broaches-to.”
“I thought you told Dawkins you could sail a ship.”
“I can navigate her,” said Pomfrett. “At least, I could if I tried. I’ve learnt the theory. But that’s not sailing her, you fool.”
“Can’t you find a kind of general direction, that will serve for any emergency—a sort of common denominator?”
“You’ll never make a sailor,” says Brandon. “Now listen: When the wind is on the quarter, the fore-tack is brought to the cat-head, and, the main-tack being cast off, the weather-clue of the main-sail is hoisted up to the yard, and the yards are so disposed as to make an angle of twenty-two degrees with the keel.”
“Very well. ‘Bring fore-tack to cat-head, cast off main-tack’ (“But supposing it is cast off already?” said Brandon), ‘hoist main-sail, go on rounding yards till I tell you to stop.’ Nothing could be simpler.”
“Ah, but,” says the hopeful mariner, “when the wind is one point on the quarter, the angle which the yards and sails make with the keel is somewhat less than a point. See what a delicate business it is! And again, when the wind is right aft, they’re at right angles with the keel, the stay-s’ls hauled down, the main-s’l brailed up, but you mustn’t furl the main-top-s’l and main-t’gallant-s’l, for fear of broaching-to! And supposing the winds fall to light and baffling airs, now a point this way, now the other—what then?”
“I’ll tell you what,” I said, “you’d better keep below and let the boatswain take charge.”
“No,” said Brandon, firmly. “One doesn’t command a ship every day. Keep below?—not I. Besides, I should forfeit the respect of the crew if I did.”
“And it would be better to forfeit the ship than that, wouldn’t it?”