For the next three weeks we ran smoothly to the westward, with nothing occurring aboard The Gentle Hand to break the monotony of ship’s duty. The stiff breeze, the edge of the northeast trade-wind, bore us steadily on over warm seas bright with sunlight and under blue skies flecked with the lumpy trade clouds that hung apparently motionless in the void above.
During this weather I had little to do, and had a better chance of seeing something of the after-guard while looking to the gear of the two long twelves we carried upon the quarter-deck for stern-chasers. We carried no metal on the forecastle, and it appeared that these heavy guns aft were out of all proportion to the rest of the battery.
I spoke to Hawkson about it, but he explained that the natives of the Navigator, Society, and Fiji groups were somewhat dangerous, and that, as our mission was one of peaceful trading, we would always run when attacked rather than fight, and the heavy twelves were for keeping large canoes at a distance.
“It would be a rather large canoe,” I admitted, “that would face the fire of a long twelve-pounder as heavy as any used in vessels of the frigate class. The islands you speak of are not, however, in the South Atlantic.”
“You always were a clever lad, Heywood,” said he, with an ugly smile. “What a smart one you were to see the error of that! But we’ll have a try just to see what you can hit. Get a beef barrel and heave it overboard, an’ get the men of the gun-crew aft.”
After that we seldom let many days slip without practice. Tim begged me to take him in the gun-crew, and, as he was as active as a monkey, I always let him have a chance. He grew very quiet and sad as we drew near the Bahamas, and when we ran clear of the trade, within a hundred miles of the island, he seemed to be gazing over the sunlit ocean, watching for a coming breeze.
Sometimes I had him aft, polishing the brass of a gun-breech, and I noticed that he divided his attention mostly between the captain, Hicks, and Renshaw, and the southern horizon.
The great southern ocean is a lonely place, but its very loneliness and quietness on the edge of the great winds makes it appeal to a turbulent soul.
Tim and I sat a long time on the breech of the stern-chaser, rubbing the metal easily and gazing out over the calm ocean. It was quiet aboard, and the voices of the men on the main-deck sounded loud and discordant. The slatting of the canvas was the only sound aloft, the royals jerking at the clews first as the barque swung easily on the swell, and then the t’gallantsails followed by the topsails fore and aft, the taut canvas fanning the almost still air with the rolling swing, making the jerking of the tacks and clews sound rhythmically upon the ear. Below, the captain and his two passengers smoked and drank their ale under the cabin skylight, their jokes sounding particularly coarse in the sunlit quiet.
Tim suddenly stopped work and gazed to the southward. Far away, miles and miles to windward, the horizon darkened slightly where the deeper blue of the ocean stood out against the pale azure of the semitropical sky.