Under Sail

by Lincoln Colcord

"They'll be back to pick us up, Captain, as soon as they miss us"

"Not if they know their duty. It would endanger the other two barges; this is going to be a bad blow. We'll have to look out for ourselves now"

"Good Lord, sir, what can we do with this old hooker?"

"Do?—everything! Do as I say. Up with that foresail, now, and be handy about it. There was a time when you wouldn't have called her an old hooker! I'll show you what she's made of"

Then it was that the labour of love which Captain Bradley had expended on the Viking bore worthy fruit. Every block was in order, every rope was clear and fast in its proper pin. Unconsciously, under his training, the crew had acquired a measure of seamanship. They had learned to obey orders, at any rate; had learned, too, to respect and trust their old wind-jammer commander.

For the first time in many years, an emergency confronted Captain Bradley. He faced it without hesitation, filled with a certain fierce joy, sure of his power and ability. Almost before the ship had lost her towing headway, he had decided on his course. He and the Viking had more than once clawed off the Jersey shore in the teeth of a northeaster. They could do it again. Then, when the storm had broken, he would take her to New York, as if they were arriving from a China voyage.

Before the little foresail, the ship wore around sweetly, came up to the wind with her nose pointed toward the broad Atlantic, and hung there steady and true. The old free motion had returned to her deck, the old life ran along her keel. Immediately, they set the spanker, mainsail and jib; this was all the sail she had. The whole area of it would hardly have equalled her former mainsail, dropping its solid square of canvas from an eighty foot mainyard; but it was enough for the purpose, and the Viking answered to it. The gale had struck; the ship heeled sharply, plunging forward on the port tack at a three-knot gait. She made considerable leeway, but headed up to east-south-east. Captain Bradley knew that if he could drive her on this course for the next twelve hours, they would stand a chance of clearing the danger that lay under their lee.

Pacing once more the quarter-deck of a ship under sail, a tempest of recollections beset the old man's mind. Past voyages, dangers, storms, past conquests of the elements, thronged upon him at the call of an awakened vocation. Adrift, now, in a long-pent flood of creative effort, other memories flashed before his eyes; scenes of love and achievement, scenes of weakness and self-indulgence, scenes of error and wrong. Life had always been hard for him to live, even at its happiest; his high spirit had ever been in arms against itself. He seemed to-night to be able to remember all of it—snatches of conversations, lights and colours, tones and meanings, touches of hands and the unspoken messages of hearts—all that had ruled his life and formed his character.

Through these recollections constantly appeared the figures of his wife and child. He thought of them deeply, tenderly, calmly. Once, when they had been at sea with him, the Viking had run into a cyclone off Mauritius; he recalled his going below in the midst of it, to reassure them. "How is it, Frank? Will it blow much harder?" "No, dear, the worst has passed" "Oh, Papa, aren't you afraid?" "No, my son, there is nothing to be afraid of in the world" He had said those words—he laughed, now, to remember. God had punished him well for his audacity.

He was surprised to find himself thinking of these things without pain. A change had taken place within him, a change born of the familiar exigency. In some inexplicable way, he was happy again. A task of seamanship lay before him; lives depended on his strength. He was a master mariner, in charge of his old ship—his ship, as truly as she had been that other morning, when, full of ambition and pride and courage, he had looked up at her untried sails. He felt her surge beneath the heavy cargo, rising, flanking the seas, flinging them off savagely, like a man striking out from the shoulder. He knew, he understood—that was the way he felt about it, too. A couple of old hulks, living beyond their time; but the spirit was in them still.