The best helmsmen are on duty now. Not even every Bluenose can steer, any more than every Englishman can box or every Frenchman fence. There are a dozen different ways of mishandling a vessel under sail. Let your attention wander, and she'll run up into the wind and perhaps get in irons, so that she won't cast either way. Let her fall off when you're running free, and she'll broach to and get taken aback. Or simply let her yaw about a bit instead of holding true, and you'll lose a knot or two an hour. But do none of these careless things, observe all the rules as well, and even then you will never make a helmsman unless it's born in you. Steering is blown into you by the wind and soaked into you by the water. And you must also have that inborn faculty of touch which tells you instinctively how to meet a vessel's vagaries—and no two vessels are alike—as well as how to make her fall in with all the humours of a wayward ocean.
The hungry great Antarctic wind comes swooping down. The Victoria lays over to it, her forefoot slashing, her lee side hissing, the windward rigging strained and screaming, and every stitch of canvas drawing full. Still the skipper carries on. He and his vessel have a name to keep up; and he has carried on till all was blue ere this, and left more than one steam kettle panting. Every timber, plank, mast, yard, and tackle wakes to new life and thrills in response to the sails. She answers her helm quickly, eagerly. She rides the galloping waters now as you ride her. And as she rises to each fresh wave you also rise, with the same exultant spring, and take the leap in your stride.
The wind pipes up: a regular gale is evidently brewing; and most of the canvas must come off her now or else she'll soon be stripped of it. 'Stand by your royal halliards!' yells the second mate. 'Let go your royal halliards!' The royals are down for good. The skysails have been taken in before. Another tremendous blast lays her far over, and the sea is a lather of foam to windward. The skipper comes on deck, takes a quick look round, and shouts at the full pitch of his lungs: 'All hands shorten sail!' Up come the other watch in their oilskins, which they have carefully lashed round their wrists and above their knees to keep the water out. Taking in sail is no easy matter now. Every one tails on, puts his back into it, and joins the chorus of the hard-breathed chanty. The human voices sound like fitful screams of seabirds, heard in wild snatches between the volleying gusts; while overhead the sails are booming like artillery, as the spilling lines strain to get the grip. 'Now then, starboard watch, up with your sail and give the larboard watch a dressing down!' Yo—ho! Yo—hay! Yo—ho—oh! Up she goes! A hiss, a crash, a deafening thud, and a gigantic wave curls overhead and batters down the toiling men, who hang on for their lives and struggle for a foothold. 'Up with you!' yells the mate, directly the tangled coil of yellow-clad humanity emerges like a half-drowned rat, 'Up with you, boys, and give her hell!' Yo—ho! To—hay! Yo—ho—harrhh! 'Turn that!' 'All fast, sir!' 'Aloft and roll her up! Now then, starbowlines, show your spunk!' Away they go, the mate dashing ahead; while the furious seas shoot up vindictive tongues at them and nearly wash two men clean off the rigging on a level with the lower topsails. Out on the swaying yard, standing on the foot-rope that is strung underneath, they grasp at the hard, wet, struggling canvas till they can pass the gaskets round the parts still bellying between the buntlines. 'One hand for the ship and one for yourself' is the rule aloft. But exceptions are more plentiful than rules on a day like this. Both hands must be used, though the sail and foot-ropes rack your body and try their best to shake you off. If they succeed, a sickening thud on deck, or a smothered scream and a half-heard plopp! overside would be the end of you.
All hands work like fury, for a full Antarctic hurricane is on them. This great South Polar storm has swept a thousand leagues, almost unchecked, before venting its utmost rage against the iron coasts all round the Horn. The South Shetlands have only served to rouse its temper. Its seas have grown bigger with every mile from the Pole, and wilder with every mile towards the Horn. Now they are so enormous that even the truck of the tall Yankee clipper staggering along to leeward cannot be seen except when both ships are topping the crest. Wherever you look there seems to be an endless earthquake of mountainous waves, with spuming volcanoes of their own, and vast, abysmal craters yawning from the depths. The Victoria begins to labour. The wind and water seem to be gaining on her every minute. She groans in every part of her sorely racked hull; while up aloft the hurricane roars, rings, and screeches through the rigging.
But suddenly there is a new and far more awful sound, which seems to still all others, as a stupendous mother wave rears its huge, engulfing bulk astern. On it comes, faster and higher, its cavernous hollow roaring and its overtopping crest snarling viciously as it turns forward, high above the poop. 'Hold on for your lives!' shout the mates and skipper. They are not a moment too soon. The sails are blanketed, and the ship seems as if she was actually being drawn, stern first, into the very jaws of the sea. A shuddering pause … and then, with a stunning crash, the whole devouring mass bursts full on deck. The stricken Victoria reels under the terrific shock, and then lies dead another anxious minute, utterly helpless, her deck awash with a smother of foaming water, and her crew apparently drowned. But presently her stern emerges through the dark, green-grey after-shoulder of the wave. She responds to the lift of the mighty barrel with a gallant effort to shake herself free. She rises, dripping from stem to stern. Her sails refill and draw her on again. And when the next wave comes she is just able to take it—but no more.
The skipper has already decided to heave to and wait for the storm to blow itself out. But there is still too much canvas on her. Even the main lower topsail has to come in. The courses, or lowest square sails, have all come in before. The little canvas required for lying to must neither be too high nor yet too low. If it is too high, it gives the wind a very dangerous degree of leverage. If it is too low, it violently strains the whole vessel by being completely blanketed when in the trough of the sea and then suddenly struck full when on the crest. The main lower topsail is at just the proper height. But only the fore and mizzen ones are wanted to balance the pressure aloft. So in it has to come. And a dangerous bit of work it gives; for it has to be hauled up from right amidships, where the deck is wetter than a half-tide rock. The yellow-oilskinned crew tail on and heave. Yo—ho! Yo—hay! 'Hitch it! Quick, for your lives, hang on, all!' A mountainous wall of black water suddenly leaps up and crashes through the windward rigging. The watch goes down to a man, some hanging on to the rope as if suspended in the middle of a waterfall, for the deck is nearly perpendicular, while others wash off altogether and fetch up with a dazing, underwater thud against the lee side. Inch by inch the men haul in, waist-deep most of the time and often completely under. Yo—ho! Yo—hay! harrhh, and they all hold breath till they can get their heads out again. Yo—ho! Yo—hay! 'In with her!' Heigh—o—oh! 'Turn that!' 'All fast!'
''Way aloft and roll her up quick!' The tossing crests are blown into spindrift against the weather yardarm, while a pelting hailstorm stings the wet, cold hands and faces. The men tear at the sail with their numb fingers till their nails are bleeding. They hit it, pull it, clutch at it for support. Certain death would follow a fall from aloft; for the whole deck is hidden under a surging, seething mass of water. You would swear the water's boiling if it wasn't icy cold. The skipper's at the wheel, watching his chance. There is no such thing as a good chance now. But he sees one of some kind, just as the men get the sail on the yard and are trying to make it fast. Down goes the helm, and her head comes slowly up to the wind. 'She's doing it—— No! Hang on, all! Great snakes, here comes a sea!' Struck full, straight on her beam, by wind and sea together, the Victoria lays over as if she would never stop. Over she heels to it—over, over, over! A second is a long suspense at such a time as this. The sea breaks in thunder along her whole length, and pours in a sweeping cataract across her deck, smashing the boats and dragging all loose gear to leeward. Over she heels—over, over, over! The yards are nearly up and down. The men cling desperately, as if to an inverted mast. And well they may, especially on the leeward arm that dips them far under a surge of water which seems likely to snap the whole thing off. But the Victoria's cargo and ballast never shift an inch. Her stability is excellent. And as the heaving shoulder eases down she holds her keel in, just before another lurch would send her turning turtle. A pause … a quiver … and she begins to right. 'Now then,' roars the indomitable mate, the moment his dripping yardarm comes from under, 'turn to, there—d' y' think we 're going to hang on here the whole damn' day?' Whereupon the men turn to again with twice the confidence and hearty goodwill that any other form of reassurance could possibly have given them.
As she comes back towards an even keel the wind catches the sails. The skipper is still at the wheel, to which he and the two men whose trick it is are clinging. 'Hard-a-lee!' and round she goes this time, till she snuggles into a good lie-to, which keeps her alternately coming up and falling off a little, by the counteraction of the sails and helm. Here she rides out the storm, dipping her lee rail under, climbing the wild, gigantic seas, and working off her course on the cyclone-driven waters; but giving watch and watch about a chance to rest before she squares away again.
Next morning the skipper hardly puts his head out before he yells the welcome order to set the main lower topsail—from the lee yardarm of which a dozen men had nearly gone to Davy Jones's locker only yesterday. He takes a look round; then orders up reefed foresail and the three upper topsails, also reefed. Up goes the watch aloft and lays out on the yard. 'Ready?' comes the shouted query from the bunt. 'Ay, ay, sir!' 'Haul out to windward!' Eh—hai, o—ho, o—ho—oh! 'Far enough, sir?' 'Haul out to leeward!' Eh—hai, o—ho, o—ho—oh! 'That'll do! Tie her up and don't miss any points!' 'Right-oh! Lay down from aloft and set the sail!' Yo—ho, yo—hai, yo—ho—oh! Then the chanty rises from the swaying men, rises and falls, in wavering bursts of sound, as if the gale was whirling it about:
Blow the man down, blow the man down,
'Way-ho! Blow the man down.
Blow the man down from Liverpool town;
Give us some wind to blow the man down.