Hell Around the Horn

8. Southern Ocean Snorter

The apprentices were in the half-deck, sent to get their gear. The lantern swung as the ship rolled, casting weird shadows across the young men's faces. Will had put on his thigh-high rubber boots, oilskins and sou'wester once before, for a photograph before he left home. Now he pulled them out of his sea chest and dressed in earnest for the first time.

“The storm's really blowing," Will commented.

Paul Nelson, senior apprentice, snorted, "This ain't nothing." He was cutting lengths of twine and laying them out across the edge of his bunk. "Come here," he said. Will stepped over.

“Stick out your arm." Will did and Paul began tying a length of twine around his wrist.

“What's that?" Will asked. Paul shook his head. The youngster still had a lot to learn.

“Body and soul lashings. You go out in a howler with your sleeves open or jacket bottom not tied, the wind will fill your oilskins full of water, if it don't blow them off altogether. Now tie your other wrist and your pant legs.”

Will looked over and saw that Jack already had his gear on. Will tied his lashings to match Jack's. He tied his sou'wester tight on his head. With his new oilskins, boots and his body and soul lashings tied tight, he felt ready for anything. Then the wind gusted again and the ship rolled, and he wasn't so sure.

Captain Barker stood on the poop deck wearing a dreadnought jacket. They were scudding along under lower topsails, foresail and jib. Lifelines had been rigged along the deck, port and starboard, and double lashings had been put on the boats, the spare spars and the stores casks. Extra tarpaulins were stretched over the hatches and the wedges driven home. Hatches two and three, which would take the brunt of the weather, were covered by three-inch deal planking, all well secured. Short of a full-scale hurricane, Captain Barker thought, the Lady Rebecca was ready for anything the Southern Ocean might throw at her.

Mary and the children were below, once again deathly seasick. He felt a moment's guilt, but there was nothing to be done. The captain glanced over at the binnacle.

“Mind your helm, damn it," he snapped at the helmsman.

“Aye, sir," came the reply, as the sailor struggled to keep the ship on course in the confused, rolling swells.

The wind suddenly dropped and then shifted to the southwest. A dark line of rain and wind rolled at them like a freight train. Seeing it coming, Captain Barker shouted, "Brace yourselves.”

The blast hit the ship abeam, sending her over, dipping her lee rail in the rushing sea, scooping up an angry wall of green water that surged down the deck as she rose again.

“All hands on deck!" The cry came in rapid succession from the captain, from Mr. Rand and the second mate, Mr. Atkinson.

The apprentices tumbled out of the half-deck house, half running, half sliding. The deck was at a forty-five-degree angle and the deck to leeward was underwater.

“Grab hold of the lifeline," Paul yelled. "Don't let it go." Will slid downhill and slammed into the heavy line, grabbing at it frantically. Jack collided with him a second later. Over the howling of the wind, they could just hear the captain bellowing, "Lee fore-brace." The mate echoed the command.

For a moment Will didn't think that he could move. A wave broke over him and he gasped then choked as icy water forced itself down his throat. He could neither see nor breathe and he held the lifeline in a death grip. He knew if he let go for an instant, he would die, be swept over the side and away into the raging sea. He had never been so battered or so frightened in his entire life. Another wave broke over him and knocked him off his feet.

With the others he hauled himself to the pinrail and grabbed the brace line. On the weather rail, the mate slacked off the weather brace, grabbing hold of the pin rails as green seas broke over the side when the ship rolled to windward. To the lee, Will and the others were knocked off their feet with every wave, relying on the tail-end man to take a quick turn around a belaying pin to keep them from being swept away. Somehow between the waves, they all hauled on the brace line, before the next comber sent them under water again.

When the main lower topsail yard was hauled around, they struggled to coil the line. Will was confused but went along as they tied the brace lines not to the pin rails, but inboard to the lifeline, to make it slightly less likely that the waves would wash the coils free.

Will struggled to stand and took a deep breath of air before he would be dunked again. He felt someone hit him on the shoulder and heard Jack yelling at his ear. "Let's go.”

They moved on to the mizzen braces which led to a fife rail aft the main mast, which was even more exposed to the waves than at the main braces. Gasping for breath in the wind that seemed more spray than air, Will again strained with the others to haul the mizzen yard around. They then all trudged forward to strike and stow the fore stay-sail as the Old Man on the poop deck shouted at them to move faster, to quit their dawdling and finish the job.

At last, Will heard Paul shouting at him, "Come on," and they retreated to the break of the poop deck. On the deck above them, Captain Barker shouted, "Helm down." The sailor at the wheel pushed the spokes to windward and slowly the Lady Rebecca rounded up in the wind. She lay, pitching and heaving in the seas; yet, balancing between wind and wave, she hove to.

The storm kept building until it felt like a full hurricane was blowing at them. Will lost all track of time. It should have been afternoon yet was as dark as night. Then, when night finally fell, the absolute blackness seemed to swallow them whole, broken only by jagged lightning, illuminating the rolling breakers topped by crests of white foam charging at them from out of the darkness.

The mate's place on the poop deck was to windward while Will, as apprentice, stood to leeward. He took a quick round turn to secure himself to the rail to avoid being washed overboard by a breaking wave or being thrown to the deck as the ship corkscrewed in the sea. Between the waves, he kept an eye on the binnacle lantern. His task was to keep the lantern burning. The wind and driving rain kept blowing it out. He would cast off his lashings and fight to relight the lantern, wondering all the while, why it mattered. The helm was lashed down and the helmsman stood by with nothing to do but hold on and hide behind the weather cloths for whatever limited protection they might afford. Will blew into his hands for warmth, and then struggled with the matches once again in an endless battle with the wind and blowing spray.

On the second night of the gale, Fred huddled at the break of the poop with the rest of his watch. In the darkness and the spray, they didn't see John Whitney, a sailor from Glasgow, step out of the fo'c'sle cabin just as a wave broke and exploded across the deck. They heard him shout as it swept him off his feet. He grabbed in vain for the lifeline but the wall of green water carried him aft, washing him into the scuppers, then carrying him across the deck and finally slamming him against the deck pump, catching his leg on the pump handle. His screams of agony carried above even the roar of the wind.

In the wild darkness, it took four men to reach him. Torrents of water surged down the deck, as Fred, Tom, Jerry the Greek and Harry formed a human chain from the lifeline to where Whitney lay crumpled, crying out as each new wave struck. Harry managed to grab him by his shirt and pull him up from where he lay, with his leg twisted unnaturally beneath him. Whitney screamed as they hauled him slowly out from under the pump, carrying him as gently as they could on the rolling deck, through the cabin into galley where they laid him on a blanket on the table, tying him down so that he wouldn't be thrown off, as the ship twisted in the waves.

Captain Barker took a look at the injured sailor, gently straightening one leg and then the other. Touching Whitney's left leg started him howling in pain. The captain looked at Fred. "Get Chips. We'll be needing a splint.”

Fred found the carpenter's cabin and pounded on the door.

“Man's been injured. Captain says he needs a splint.”

Gronberg was pulling on his dungarees and oilskins. "You tell the captain, I'll be there right quick.”

In a few minutes, the carpenter was measuring Whitney's leg.

“It appears to be fractured in three places," the captain commented.

“Ya, looks like it." Gronberg nodded in agreement. He pocketed his tape, cinched his oilskins tight and left the galley. He hauled his way along the deck, hand over hand, holding onto the lifeline as the breaking waves sent water surging from his knees to his chest, until he finally reached the wood shop forward, where his tools and spare planks were stored.

When he returned about a half-hour later, thoroughly soaked from his trip down the deck, he pulled two pine planks from beneath his dripping oilskins. They fit Whitney's leg perfectly and had slots cut in the planks where sail gaskets could be threaded to hold them in place.

“Nicely done, Mr. Gronberg," the captain said as he began carefully tying on the splint. Whitney, who had been given morphine, slept quietly as the captain gently bound the shattered leg.

“Thank you, sir. Not my first pair of splints," Chips replied.

When the captain was finished he said, "You men, put him in the spare cabin next to the steward.”

Whitney would likely live, but he would be out of commission for the rest of the trip. As they carried the sleeping sailor gingerly to the cabin, Fred couldn't help think that the twenty-man crew was down by one and they were still well north of Cape Horn.

One thing that Captain Barker knew for certain was that even a full snorter of a gale would blow itself out sooner or later. After four days, the skies cleared and the wind filled in again from the northwest. Barker took one last look at the rising barometer before climbing the ladder to the poop deck. "Mr. Atkinson, all hands, if you please. Set everything to the royals. I don't want to waste an ounce of this breeze.”

Mr. Atkinson bellowed, "All hands." The shout was soon echoed by Mr. Rand, who a moment later appeared from his cabin. With a favoring breeze pushing them toward Cape Horn, even he looked less dour than usual.

“Come on, you motherless farmers," he shouted. "Let's see what the old lady can do.”

Will and the other apprentices laid out on the mizzen yards, casting off the t'gallant gaskets and then racing to see who could be the first back on deck.

Harry belted out a favorite shanty as the crew scrambled down the ratlines and formed up at the halyards to raise sail.

“Me boots and clothes are all in pawn,”

and all sang back, hauling in time,

“Go down, ye blood red roses, go down.”

“Cause it's mighty drafty round Cape Horn,”

“Go down, ye blood red roses, go down….”

After the misery of the gale, Will couldn't quite believe the color of the sky that peeked through the broken clouds. It was blue, as deep and clear a blue as he had ever seen. With all sails set, the canvas filled the sky and once again the grand ship rolled mightily over the waves rather than being battered and tossed by the storm. The wind was cold but bracing. Somehow yesterday's gale seemed far, far away as Will grinned like an idiot gazing up at the towering sails.

Beneath the blue skies and the steady northwesterly the Lady Rebecca picked up her skirts and danced along at close to fourteen knots. Captain Barker felt like dancing as well. He went below to to the chart table. The barometer stayed high and he smiled as he plotted a course to weather St. John's Point on the eastern tip of Staten Island, the gateway to Drake's Passage and the waters of Cape Horn. By his reckoning, they would round Staten Island on August 7, a passage of over 8,000 miles in fifty-seven days. They had lost a few days in the gale but were making up the distance nicely. Captain Barker was well pleased with his ship, his crew and himself. His only concern was his mate.

At noon, he and Mr. Rand were on deck taking sun sights beneath a clear blue sky. Captain Barker lowered his sextant and jotted his reading into his notebook, and then asked the mate for his meridian altitude as well. Mr. Rand spat it out in a growl, turned and walked to his cabin.

Captain Barker watched his back as he walked away. Had Mr. Rand been a bad mate, his choice would have been easier. There were twelve pairs of shackles in the lazarette, part of the ship's allowance, ready in case of a mutiny. He could simply clap Mr. Rand in irons for the rest of the voyage. Mutinies always need a leader and there was none better than a disloyal mate who believed he knew better than the captain, or perhaps thought that he himself should be captain. Unfortunately, Captain Barker didn't have a spare mate on the lazarette shelf next to the shackles. So far Tom Atkinson had shown himself to be a fine young man and good second mate, but this was only his second voyage as an officer and he could use more seasoning. On the other hand, Captain Barker knew that he might not have any other choice.

If his thoughts were dark, at the least the skies were blue and the wind favorable. He wondered whether Mary and the children would recover from their seasickness sufficiently to come on deck and enjoy the sun. These winds were colder than the trades but perhaps with blankets they might enjoy the brief sunshine, which was all the more remarkable with every mile they sailed south.

As he worked out his position with the sight reduction tables, he saw that they were still making over 250 miles a day. The Falkland Islands lay due east over the horizon. He wondered idly where the Susannah might be. She had to be in their wake. He could feel it. Not even a fire had slowed down the Lady Rebecca. They had to be ahead of the German ship. Soon they would round Staten Island and all that remained for them would be to round Cape Horn itself. He prayed for fair weather, even though he knew that might be too much to ask for.