Two years before, Boldwin, after being hove-to for thirty-six hours in a gale, had brought in his ship laden with fruit he had taken under protest, the "yellow" being plainly in sight at the ends of more than half the bunches. He had docked, and a score of men had waded about for several days up to their hips in a mess which, once seen, causes all lovers of bananas to eschew that fruit forever afterward. Banana juice will cut the steel plates of a ship's side almost like diluted sulphuric acid—but they gave him another chance.
It was late in the afternoon of the day we had run clear of the land, when the first signs of the hurricane of September 19, 1903, made its appearance. The swell began to roll heavily from the southeast with a curious cross-roll from the westward, making a peculiarly uncomfortable sea for a steamer running northward. It dropped away from under our counter, and the Prince Alfred dipped her taffrail almost to the unruffled surface. Then she would rise upon it, and, as it lifted well under her underbody, she would roll to port and throw her stern so high that the starboard screw would race in a storm of foam at the surface, shaking her tremendously, and annoying the passengers who happened to occupy after-staterooms.
When the second officer, Smith, came on duty, I made my way aft to take a look over things—to see that the small boats were securely lashed; that gratings and gear were in place, for it was evident that we were to have a piece of dirty weather. A large, fat, pale-faced woman poked her head out of window and demanded that I have the starboard engine stopped at once, as it was too racking on her nerves. She declared she had stood it as long as she could, and would lodge a complaint with the president of the company immediately she got ashore, if her demand were not complied with instantly. I started to argue the case, but she cut me short, exclaiming that "they never did such things on the French boats."
All the gear was in order aft, and I had just made my way to the bridge, when the Captain called my attention to a haze gathering to the southward.
"The glass is starting down again—dropped two more tenths," he said. "We'll run foul of something before eight bells. Looks like it was following the Stream along to the northward; it usually does."
A heavy, blue-black bank of cloud, smooth, and swept into an immense semicircle over the southern horizon, but rising fast, told of the beginning of trouble. Half an hour later we began to feel the squalls, which came suddenly and with vicious spurts of fine rain.
"According to old Captain Valdes," said Boldwin, "if you place your back to the wind, the center of the blow is to the left, or port side, and a bit behind you. This breeze is coming in from the east'ard good and quick, and it looks like we'll fetch the center straight and fair the way we're heading."
"Would you stop her and heave her up?" I asked.
"Stop her? Not as long as she'll swim. What do you think we are—a sand-barge? Stop a liner running on schedule with a fortune of bananas lying below? Get those ventilators trimmed, and put three covers on the after hatch and lash them fast. We'll run her. Who do you think would take this packet out the next voyage if he hove her to?"
As it was only too evident that it would be my chance, I said nothing.