Sixty hours and more of this sort of weather dragged past. I once said to Tom Thornton:
“It’s a pity the skipper didn’t try for the Straits, isn’t it?”
“And what would the Gullwing be doing in the Straits, in a blow like this, my lad?” he demanded. “A big ship like her in that narrow way has little chance in a storm. The tail of such a gale as this would heave her on the rocks. There’s not seaway enough there for anything bigger than a bugeye canoe.”
“But the Scarboro made a fair course through it,” I said.
“That greaser!” snorted the old A. B. “She can loaf along as she pleases. Sea-anchor, if there’s a bit of a gale. But the Windjammer has to make time. These days the big sailin’ ships hafter compete with them dirty steam tramps. We can’t risk bein’ becalmed in any narrow waterway—no, sir!”
It was on the fourth night, with the wind blowing a hurricane and the snow as thick about us as a winding-sheet, that our watch had come on deck at midnight. I was sent as second man with Bob Promise to the wheel. It took both of us to handle the steering gear when the old schooner kicked and plunged so.
We were under close-reefed mainsail and jibs and were battling fearful waves. The sleet-like snow drove across her deck and all but blinded us. I had to keep wiping the slush off the binnacle, or the lamp would have been completely smothered and we could not have seen the trembling needle.
Sometimes the officer on the quarter was hidden from our eyes, but his voice reached us all right:
“Steady your helm! You lubbers act like your muscles were mush. Keep off! Can’t you hear that sail shaking? You’ll have us under sternway yet. Call yourselves sailors? You’re a pair of farmers! What d’ye think you’re doing? Plowing with a pair of steers? Steady!”
Bob muttered imprecations on Mr. Barney’s head; but I knew better.