"There's Arthur half a point off already," he said, and made for the bridge.
Arthur Price believed honestly that more was exacted from him than from other chief mates; and early in that passage he concluded that the Old Man was severer than ever. The Burdock butted into a summer gale before she was clear of the Bristol Channel, a free wind that came from the south-west driving a biggish sea before it. It was nothing to give real trouble, but Captain Price took charge in the dog watch and set the mate and his men to making all fast about decks. With his sou'wester flapped back from his forehead and his oilskin coat shrouding him to the heels, he leaned on the bridge rail, vociferous and imperative, and his harsh voice hunted the workers from one task to another. He had lashings on the anchors and fresh wedges to the battens of all hatches; the winches chocked off and covered over and new pins in the davit blocks. This took time, but when it was done he was not yet satisfied; the mate had to get out gear and rig a couple of preventer funnel stays. The men looked ahead at the weather and wondered what the skipper saw in it to make such a bother; the second and third mates winked at one another behind Arthur Price's back; and he, the chief mate, sulked.
"That's all, I suppose?" he asked the Captain when he got on the bridge again at last.
"No," was the sharp answer. "It's not all. Speak the engine-room and ask the chief how he's hitting it."
"All sweet," reported the mate as he hung up the speaking tube.
"That's right," said the Captain. "You always want to know that,
Mister Mate. And the lights?"
"All bright, sir," said the mate.
"Then you can go down and get something to eat," said the Captain.
"And see that the hand wheel's clear as you go."
It breezed up that night, and as the Burdock cleared the tail of Cornwall, the heavy Atlantic water came aboard. She was a sound ship, though, and Captain Price knew her as he knew the palms of his hands. Screened behind the high weather-cloths, he drove her into it, while the tall seas filled her forward main deck rail-deep and her bows pounded away in a mast-high smother of spray. From the binnacle amidships to the weather wing of the bridge was his dominion, while the watch officer straddled down to leeward; both with eyes boring at the darkness ahead and on either beam, where there came and went the pin-point lights of ships.
Arthur Price relieved the bridge at midnight, but the Captain held on.