The Strife of the Sea

by T. Jenkins Hains

IN THE WAKE OF THE WEATHER-CLOTH

We had raised the great tower of the Hatteras lighthouse in the dim gray of the early morning. The huge spark flashed and faded as the lens swung slowly about its axis some fifteen miles to the south’ard of us. Objects now began to be more distinct, and our masthead could be made out against the leaden background above. Up there the fierce song of the gale roared dismally as the little vessel rose upon the giant Gulf sea, and swung her straining fabric to windward. Then, quartering the heave of the foam-crested hill, she would drop slowly down that dread incline and roll desperately to leeward as she started to meet the rushing hill to windward and above her.

With a bit of the gaff hoisted, and leach and luff lashed fast down, we were trying to forereach to the eastward and clear the death-trap under our lee—the fatal diamond of the Hatteras Shoals. Buck and I had been on deck all the day before, and all night, and we welcomed the growing light as only hard-pressed men at sea can welcome it. It meant a respite from the black hell about us, and the heavy snore of some giant comber would no longer make us catch our breath in the dread it might be the beginning of that white reach where no vessel that enters comes forth again.

We could see we had many miles between us and the end—miles that meant many minutes which might be utilized in the fight for life. We were heading nearly east now, and the stanch little craft was making better than south, while the gale had swung up to nor’-nor’east. She was forereaching ahead, though going fast to leeward, and it looked as if we might claw off into the wild Gulf Stream, where in spite of the sea lay safety. To leeward lay certain death, the wild death of a lost ship in the white smother that rolled with the chaotic thunder of riven hills of water.

Buck’s face was calm and white in the morning light, and his oilskins hung about him in dismal folds. White streaks of salt showed under his eyes, which were partly sheltered by his sou’wester, and the deep lines in his wet cheeks gave him a worn-out look. He must have been very tired, for as I came from behind the piece of canvas lashed on the weather quarter to serve as a weather-cloth, he left the wheel and dropped down behind the bulwarks.

“Begins to look better,” I bawled, taking off the becket from the wheel spokes, which had been hove hard down all night. “She needs a bit of nursing,” and Buck nodded and grinned as he ducked from the flying drift.

She was doing well now, and after trying to ease her a while I put the wheel back in the becket and bawled down the scuttle to our little black boy to get us some junk and ship’s bread.

Our other man, John, a Swede, had turned in dead beat out an hour before, and as we four were all hands, I thought it just as well to let him sleep as long as he could. As master, I would have to stay on deck anyway.

Buck and I crouched in the lee of the bulwarks and tarpaulin, munching the junk and watching the little ship ride the sea. We could do nothing except let her head as close as we dared to the gale.

As long as the canvas held all would be well. The close-reefed mainsail would have been blown away in the rush of that fierce blast, and it would have been folly to try to drive her into that appalling sea. If anything started we were lost men. She was only a twenty-ton vessel, but she had a good nine feet of keel under her, and could hold on grimly. We had used a sea anchor for twenty-four hours, but while it held her head to the sea it caused her to drift dead to leeward, so we had at last cut it adrift and put a bit of storm staysail on her to work ahead.