“Ease off the sheet—haul up to lee!”
The crew redoubled their quickness; and soon the immense courses were stowed. In a few minutes the ship’s canvas was reduced to reefed topsails, spanker, and fore-topmast staysail. By this time evening had set in, though the long twilight of that latitude prolonged a sickly radiance.
But even this contraction of sail was not sufficient. The thick duck tugged at the yards, as if it would snap them in two. Every moment I expected to see the spanker go.
“We must take in that sail,” said the captain finally, “or she will tear herself to pieces. All hands in with the spanker.”
In an instant the men were struggling with the huge sheet of canvas; and never before had I been so forcibly impressed with the power and usefulness of discipline. In an incredibly short interval the gigantic sail, notwithstanding its struggles, was got under control, and safely stowed.
The ship now labored less for awhile, but, as the storm increased, she groaned and struggled as before. The captain saw it would not do to carry even the little sail now remaining, for, under the tremendous strain, the canvas might be continually expected to be blown from the bolt-ropes. And yet our sole hope lay in crowding every stitch, in order to claw off the English coast! The sailor will understand this at a word, but to the landsman it may require explanation.
Our danger, then, consisted in having insufficient sea room. If we had been on the broad Atlantic, with a hundred or two miles of ocean all around us, we could have lain-to under some bit of a head-sail, or fore-topmast sky-sail for instance, or a reefed fore-sail. But when a vessel lies-to, or, in other words, faces the quarter whence the wind comes, with only enough canvas set to steer her by, she necessarily drifts considerably, and in a line of motion diagonal to her keel. This is called making lee-way. Most ships, when lying-to in a gale, drill very rapidly, sometimes hundreds of miles if the tempest is protracted. It is for this reason that a vessel in a narrow channel dares not lie-to, for a few miles of lee-way would wreck her on the neighboring coast. The only resource, in such cases, is to carry a press of sail, and head in the direction whence the wind comes, but not near so close to it as in lying-to. This is called clawing off a lee-shore. A constant struggle is maintained between the waves, which set the vessel in the same track they are going themselves, and the wind, which urges her on the opposite course. If the canvas holds, and the ship is not too close to the shore under her lee, she escapes: if the sails part, she drives upon the fatal coast before new ones can be got up and bent. Frequently in such cases the struggle is protracted for hours. It is a noble yet harrowing spectacle to see a gallant ship thus contending for her life, as if an animated creature, breasting surge after surge, too often in vain, panting, trembling and battling till the very last.
The captain did not appear satisfied with taking in the spanker; indeed, all feared that the ship could not carry what sail was left. Accordingly, he ordered the topsails to be close-reefed. Yet even after this, the vessel tore through the waters as if every moment she would jerk her masts out. The wind had now increased to a perfect hurricane. It shrieked, howled and roared around as if a thousand fiends were abroad on the blast.
In moments of extreme peril strong natures gather together, as if by some secret instinct. It was in this way that the captain suddenly found himself near the old topman, whom I had been conversing with in the early part of the evening, and who, it appeared, was one of the oldest and best seamen in the ship.
The captain stood by the man’s side a full minute without speaking, looking at the wild waves that, like hungry wolves, came trooping down toward us.