Hell Around the Horn

9. Below Latitude 50 South

While sweeping up, Will peeked at the chart table. He had come to enjoy his minor conspiracy with Fred, as he regularly passed the position on to his shipmate before the mast. He pulled his notebook and a stub of a pencil from his pocket and jotted down the date, August 3, 1905, and the position—51 degrees 46 minutes south, 64 degrees 10 minutes west.

They had left the Roaring Forties behind and now stood into the Furious Fifties, as the sailors called them. According to the faint pencil marks on the chart, they were roughly abeam of the Falkland Islands, the last inhabited refuge for sailing ships before the Horn.

He finished up the sweeping, took the broom, dustpan and rags back the pantry, and then buttoned his dreadnoughtjacket and went back on deck. He strode quickly to the weather mizzen ratlines and clambered up to the mizzen top. The wind was bitterly cold and made his eyes water as he wrapped an arm around a shroud and peered intently toward the east. At first, all he saw was the gray sea, rollers capped with white crests stretching off toward the horizon, shrouded in low clouds.

Then, as he stared, he thought he saw a dark smudge floating in the blurred juncture between the sea and sky. He blinked several times and wiped his eyes. It was still there. The Falkland Islands. He let out a small yelp. There wasn't much to see, but it was the first land that he had seen since the Bristol Channel. Some place, off to the south and west , was the mighty Cape Horn. His ears smarted from the cold and his cheeks burned with every wind gust. Still, he couldn't help but grin. He swung out on the futtock shrouds and climbed quickly down to the deck.

Fred marked the daily entry into his journal. August 6. There were now 55 marks on the bunk bulkhead. Fifty-five days from Cardiff. They had passed the Falklands and would soon fetch Staten Island. A respectable if not overly fast passage. He stowed his journal and dressed for the watch. He could feel the cold even in the fo'c'sle cabin. He rubbed his fingers and his breath spread like a tiny fog bank before him. The ship's bell rang and with the rest of his watch, he turned to.

The mate bellowed to take a pull on the fore topsail brace, so he joined the gang at the lee rail and hauled the brace a bit tighter. The crowd drifted back to the break of the poop. Captain Barker's rules forbade anyone from going below except under orders while on watch, so they stood by, shuffling to keep warm. Fred cursed beneath his breath at the son-of-a-bitch captain, as well within his right to do so. It was every sailor's right to growl.

Fred felt more like a mummy than a sailor now, with all his layers of clothing. At this moment, however, the cold wasn't bothering him. On the near horizon was one of the reasons he had sailed on the Lady Rebecca.

The island of Tierra del Fuego rose from the ocean, forbidding and wild. Almost vertical walls of rock soared up from the sea to ragged, rugged peaks topped with snow and ice, the tallest disappearing into the clouds. Black gorges and chasms filled with snow broke the uniform gray of the shore. A wilder and lonelier coast he had never seen or even imagined. Somewhere to the north lay the entrance to the Strait of Magellan, too narrow and winding for sailing ships, fit only for the smoke-box steamers.

Tierra del Fuego, the land of fire. Fred liked the way the name felt on his tongue and repeated it to himself. Tierra del Fuego. It seemed inconceivable that anyone could live in such a barren place, but Magellan had named the island after seeing the fires of the natives ashore. He had acquired that bit of knowledge in the comfortable library at Yale, literally half a world away, yet which now seemed to be a part of another universe entirely.

He stomped his feet, rubbed his hands together for warmth, and stared out at the dark and forbidding shore. Finally, as the sun was setting, the mate returned to the deck, struck the bell and yelled, "That'll do the watch." Fred took one last look at the distant shore and trudged back to the fo'c'sle cabin.

The weather turned unsettled and gloomy about a hundred miles north and east of St. John's Point. The wind had shifted nor'-nor'east and was dropping. A long bank of clouds lay on the easterly horizon. Captain Barker stood on the poop deck with the mates, discussing the likely change in the weather.

“It'll blow from the southeast and then east, afore the westerlies fill in again," Mr. Rand opined. Captain Barker saw that Mr. Atkinson stood looking engaged in the conversation but offering to no opinions of his own. The captain approved. Better to listen and learn than to open your mouth and demonstrate your inexperience.

“I think you are right, Mr. Rand. If we can round Staten Island and square away with an easterly breeze, we might be around and into the Pacific as slick as a whistle.”

Rand shook his head. "Have you ever managed that trick, Captain?”

“No, sir, but no reason that we might not get lucky this time.”

“I've never thought it wise to rely on luck, sir," the mate grumbled.

“Well, neither have I, but I am loath not to appreciate it when it comes along," the captain replied.

As Rand had predicted, the wind blew a fresh east by south. Captain Barker ordered the helmsman to sail her full and by, as close to the wind as she would bear with all sails drawing. In the rising wind, they struck the upper and lower t'gansails and the cro'jack and were still sailing close enough to the edge of losing sails or rigging, but somehow everything held together. She plowed along to weather at close to eight knots and by dawn was within forty miles of St. John's Point on Staten Island, the gateway to Cape Horn.

The weather grew thick and they could see perhaps five sea miles. The daylight was halfhearted, yet bright enough through the clouds to see that they were now no longer alone in these waters. There were at least six ships, emerging and disappearing in the gloom, all bound for Cape Horn. Captain Barker recognized two of them, both Frenchmen, the full-rigged Desaix and the Crillion. If he recalled the shipping reports, they had sailed from Antwerp bound for Frisco a few days before the Rebecca sailed from Cardiff.

Captain Barker stood next to the helmsman, watching the set of the sails and wondering if they would be able to weather St. John's Point on a single tack. He was tempted to square away and take the shortcut between the toe of Tierra del Fuego and Staten Island, through the Le Maire Strait. Wouldn't that be a story to tell? Still, he decided against it. There were rocks extending a considerable way north of Staten Island that would be impossible to see in the overcast. Finding just one rock with these seas running would hole the ship and bring the top-hamper crashing down. Not the way he wanted to end the voyage.

So they stood on, the Rebecca shouldering the building seas. All hands were now clustered on the main deck just abaft the fo'c'sle head, staring out into the gloom, looking for the dim shadow that would be the outline of the eastern end of Staten Island.

A cry rang out as the lookout spotted St. John's Point, barely a point to leeward and a scant five miles off. Captain Barker debated with himself whether to stand on and clear the point by the slimmest margin or to bear away. As he considered the question, the six other ships all, one by one, wore about and stood to the north.

Mr. Rand bounded over. "We'll never clear the point, Captain. Can't you see the rocks to leeward? Look at the seas breaking over them. We still have time to wear ship. If we don't, God help us.”

Captain Barker turned and snapped, "Mister, I'll be the one saying when to wear ship and when to stand on. We're a full point to windward and the wind is lifting us. She'll come up some yet. The wind striking those cliffs there will lift us farther still. We'll be clear and squaring yards in ten minutes, so stand aside and stand by.”

Rand grumbled to himself, and then stamped off to leeward.

The Lady Rebecca drove on and the spray from the breaking waves reached higher. Captain Barker shouted forward, "As we pass, hold on, every man for himself. It'll be rough.”

As the point drew abeam, the sound of the breakers rose to a roar. They were suddenly buffeted by waves from both sides. The swell from the open Atlantic struck from port while the waves rebounding off the rocks rolled back out and struck them from starboard. The sea seemed to be rising up to swallow them, with spray flying in all directions, in a wild cacophony of wind and wave.

And then suddenly, there was silence. The easy hum of the wind and creaking of the rigging was the only sound they heard. They were past the point. They had rounded Staten Island. Now, Cape Horn was one hundred and fifty miles away and, magically, they had a favoring wind. Captain Barker felt like letting go with a cheer, but only clasped his hands behind him and smiled. He turned to the helmsman.

“Quartermaster, bear off two points, and once the yards are squared bear off two more.”

“Aye, sir. Two points and two more when the yards are square.”

“Mr. Rand," Captain Barker shouted, "square away and shake out the t'gansails and royals. I don't want to waste one ounce of this breeze.”

“Aye, captain," the mate replied.

“And once the sails are set and square, send everyone aft," the captain continued. "It's time we spliced the mainbrace. Have the purser break out the rum cask. A tot for every man.”

August 8, 1905 – 58 days out of Cardiff

The next day, the easterly breeze held and the Lady Rebecca stood boldly on, south and west, with all sails set. At noon, Captain Barker and Mr. Rand took their sun sights. Once he had reduced them to latitude and longitude, Captain Barker came on deck and commented to Mr. Atkinson, in a voice meant to carry well beyond the poop deck, "Our position is 56 degrees 20 minutes south and 67 degrees 30 minutes west.”

Mr. Atkinson broke into a wide grin and replied, half shouting, "Then we have passed the meridian? We have rounded the Horn?”

“Indeed we have, Mr. Atkinson. We will not be properly around until we again reach 50 south latitude, of course, but we have indeed passed the meridian of the cape.”

William wanted to cheer, but instead ran to the mainmast ratlines and climbed aloft to see if he could spy the Horn, only to be shooed down a few minutes later by Mr. Atkinson. They were too far south, in any case. Cape Horn was over the horizon to the north and just slightly east. Word spread quickly, and soon everyone aboard had heard the news.

Harry joked with the cook, Jeremiah. "Not such an unlucky ship after all, doctor. Maybe your Jonah bring us this easterly, what do ya think?”

“Aach, don' be bothering me," the cook replied gesturing with his cleaver. "We's not in Chile yet. No, sir. Not by a long shot.”

By early afternoon, the easterly wind had begun to die. The sails hung limp and slatting, and the ship slowed until she was nearly becalmed in the long oily swells. The captain's family, who had been on deck since noon, were quickly ushered below. The temperature dropped suddenly again as a bank of low clouds obscured the horizon. Then it began to snow and, for a time, the ship and the sky almost disappeared in the swirling storm. When the snow squall passed, the ship glistened in a sepulchral whiteness.

The captain dropped below to check the barometer and returned looking grave. All eyes were turned toward the poop deck as the captain spoke quietly with the mates. Then came the expected battle cry. "All hands to shorten sail.”

The watch below tumbled out on a run. The Cape Horners among them knew what was coming and everyone scrambled to the pin rails. Fred read the deadly earnest in the expressions of Donnie, Harry and the rest and hurried along with them.

“Bunts and clews. Furl the royals and t'gallants. Slack away those bloody halyards, you motherless sons of bitches. Run," Rand shouted, needlessly.

To the bellowing of the commands and the clicking of the patent blocks, Fred grabbed the icy buntlines and hauled with the rest, his hands burning on the snow-crusted lines as the sails slowly gathered up against the yards. Their work on deck done, they scrambled up the ratlines to furl the sails, fighting the snow-covered canvas with frozen hands. Fred tried to focus only on the job he was doing, squatting down on the footropes, trying to pass a gasket to Jerry the Greek, who was bent double over the yard reaching out as far as he could to catch it. The sails were stiff with snow and ice, and furling them was a painful ordeal. The long swells were building and the ship pitched and rolled. Fred shouted curses at the wind as he struggled to pass the gaskets, while avoiding being pitched from his tenuous perch. Both ignored the horizon, which was now wholly a swirl of black and gray and seemed to be rolling toward them at a terrible speed.

In the blackness, around 10 p.m., all sails were furled. The waves grew higher, yet in the relative lull before the storm the ship had almost no headway and so was at the mercy of the swells. The Lady Rebecca rolled sluggishly like a sailor on a three-day drunk. Fred braced himself, his back against the fo'c'sle house with his hand shoved under his armpits, trying in vain to warm his fingers. Looking out in the darkness, he saw a vivid, boiling white line rushing toward them. The long swells had transformed into lines of breaking waves, driven by a demon wind.

The captain yelled, "Hard up your helm. Lee braces.”

Fred and the others ran to the lee pin rail and frantically hauled the forward yards around so that they would be less square to the wind when the blow struck.

When the wind did hit, Fred was first deafened by the unholy roar, and then was tossed against the shrouds. An icy wall of water washed over him but he held tight to the line he had been hauling, as the rushing water lifted him off his feet. The ship staggered and rolled in the infernal blast. Then she fought her way back up, pitching and rolling like a battered boxer, never quite knocked flat, always rising again.

After what seemed like an age, the squall passed, leaving rolling trains of mountainous seas. The Lady Rebecca lay six points to the wind, doggedly fore-reaching under reefed lower topsails. She was not quite beam on, her bowsprit jutting perhaps twenty degrees forward, presenting her stout shoulder to the sea's onslaught, dropping down in the troughs and rising up again to climb the precipitous, breaking crests.

When the watch was sent below Fred threw himself into his bunk fully clothed. Just behind him came Donnie.

“Well, lad. You've got a tale to tell, to be sure. Rounded Cape Horn, an' twice in one day.”

Fred raised his head. "What?”

“We rounded westbound this afternoon, and with these winds pushing us back, we'll likely round it eastbound before dawn. I'm guessin' that this'll not be a fast passage after all." The Irishman grinned wryly and shuffled off to his bunk.

The westerlies began to blow. South of Cape Horn, there was nothing to block the wind, nothing to deflect the waves. Huge and slate gray, the waves grew into massive rolling ranges, each preceded by a long valley. They rose thirty, forty, even fifty feet high, crested by boiling white caps, and each wave that followed was seemingly larger than the last. The Southern Ocean was a vast raceway where the howling westerlies and monstrous seas chased each other endlessly around the bottom of the world.

Fred huddled with the rest of the watch on the leeward side of the poop deck, grimly watching the mountainous waves that rolled at them relentlessly. In the long troughs, the roar of the wind diminished slightly only to rise again to an unearthly howl as the wave lifted them higher and higher. At the top, they were blasted by the full force of the gale, before crashing through the foaming, breaking crest, and plunging down the other side of the wave like a cast-off cork. With each wave, the ship rolled deeply, scooping up tons of green water on the open leeward deck, sending it surging the length of the ship to break against the raised face of the poop deck.

Fred marveled at how the old ship fought the seas, shouldering a roller with a burst of spray and then rising again and again over one towering sea after another, as dogged in her determination as the rolling waves were relentless. The wind was bitterly cold and the spume froze as it struck the shrouds, the running rigging and the reefed sails. All Fred could do was pull his jacket tighter about him and hold on.

The captain stood on the poop deck to windward, their lord and master, staring out into the half-light. A line of dark clouds was bearing down on them.

“All hands to shorten sail," the captain shouted once again. And once again, Fred and the rest of the watch ran to the pin rails. Before they were through, the squall hit with a roar like a million wild beasts. The ship shuddered and rolled, sending the lee rail underwater. Fred held desperately onto the lifeline as the surging icy water, rising up to his chest, tried to carry him away.

When the ship rolled back and the water receded, his face was pelted by sleet. With frozen hands, they belayed and coiled down the clews and bunts and then mounted the weather ratlines to furl the sails, which, held only by the bunts and clews, thrashed wildly. The sailors finally wrestled the frozen sails and secured them with the gaskets and returned to the treacherous, wave-swept deck.

When the squall passed, the sky lightened slightly. Off to windward Fred could see a maelstrom of clouds piled high above the horizon, illuminated by broken shafts of sunlight. At the crest of one wave, Fred was startled to see an albatross serenely rise up from the trough and wheel effortlessly in the gale's blast. It hung there for a moment and then as if by some enchantment flew off to westward, directly into the wind. Fred stood stunned, and then recited a stanza from part of the old poem that his professor had made them all commit to memory.

And now the storm-blast came, and he

Was tyrannous and strong:

He struck with his o'ertaking wings,

And chased us south along.

Tom Jackson looked over at him and scowled. He couldn't hear what Fred was saying over the wind under any circumstances, but Fred replied as if he could, "From 'The Rime of the Ancient Mariner' by Samuel Taylor Coleridge." Fred grinned. Education was never wasted.

West. To the west was where they needed to sail and to the west was from whence the gale blew. As long as the westerlies blew, they would make no westing. Despite their fore-reaching, the current was carrying them backward. Day after day they slogged on, waiting for a shift in the wind, the favoring slant that would free them from the shackles of the westerlies.

In addition to being carried back on the current, they were sailing south, farther and farther south. Fred could feel it on the air. Inexorably southward, farther from the cape and ever closer to the Antarctic ice. If the westerly gales didn't kill them, there was always the ice. Icebergs could sink ships, the grandest windjammer disappearing without a trace. And worse, an ice sheet could trap a ship, leaving the sailors aboard to freeze or to starve.

Day and night the crew scrambled aloft to take in sails when the wind rose and to shake out the reefs when it eased even slightly. The ice-covered steel shrouds burned and ripped at sailor's palms as they climbed aloft. The frozen sails refused to be reefed or furled without an extended pounding to break off the layers of ice. The sails ripped at their nails and froze their fingers, and the ship, rolling and pitching, threatened to hurl them from their slippery perches onto the deck below or into the icy waters.

When his watch was finally over, Fred threw himself into his bunk. The floor of the fo'c'sle was awash with six inches of water and Fred was pleased to have chosen an upper berth, even if the overhead leaked and he had to rig a bit of canvas to avoid the dripping. The small bogie stove glowed in the far end of the cabin but seemed not to give off any appreciable heat. Fully clothed and shivering, Fred slipped off to sleep. Steam rose from his oilskins, as his own body heat helped to dry his clothing, just a bit.

He awoke to a cold meal. The galley was awash, just like the fo'c'sle, and Jeremiah couldn't keep his stove alight, so they all chewed their salt junk cold. "I never signed on to cook underwater, no sir," became the cook's refrain. Donnie's knack for impersonation brightened the fo'c'sle slightly with a few chuckles as they worked their jaws on the cold beef and pantiles. They were all tending sail underwater, at least some of the time, so Fred could see no reason why the cook couldn't do the same.

The bogie stoves in the fo'c'sles were too small for any practical use, so the steward heated large pots of coffee and tea in the deckhouse aft, which the apprentices then shuttled to the fo'c'sles, dodging the seas surging across the deck. More than a few times, the pots of hot liquid ended up full of cold salt water before they arrived forward.

Fred was again reminded of Coleridge: Water, water everywhere and not a drop to drink.

There was no shortage of freshwater. They had more than enough of it in the form of snow and the sleet than they would ever want. Not that they could conveniently drink it.

There was no shortage of freshwater in the tanks of the Lady Rebecca, either. The problem was simply getting to it. The tank access was directly behind the mainmast, convenient both to the fo'c'sle cabins and the galley. The hand pump affixed to the tank trunk was padlocked and could only be used in the presence of an officer. The pump was built into a pin rail just aft of the mast.

In fair weather, there was no problem pumping the ten buckets a day of freshwater allowed for drinking and cooking. With water breaking across the deck, it was an entirely different matter.

Lifelines were rigged fore and aft and athwartships. Eight sailors and an officer would make their way to the pumps, holding buckets over their heads. It then became an ugly game of trying to pump frantically between the breaking seas then holding the buckets high enough to keep them out of the seawater. Most buckets made it back to the cabin or to the fo'c'sle more than a little brackish from the spray alone. Of all his duties aboard ship, this was Fred's least favorite. He would rather fight a frozen topsail than walk the deck holding a sloshing bucket above his head while icy waves up to his chest tried to wash him overboard.

“Captain Barker, sir. I believe you need to see this.”

The captain looked up from the chart table. "Yes, Mr. Atkinson.”

The second mate stepped into the dayroom, followed by Hanson and Lindstrom.

“Show your hands and feet.”

Three fingers on Lindstrom's left hand were red and shriveled as were four of Hanson's toes on his right foot.

“Have the steward wrap the affected fingers and toes in warm compresses. Put these sailors on light duty and I will check on them daily.”

“Yes, sir," Atkinson replied.

“And speak to Mr. Rand. Have him check on frostbite in his watch. If your sailors are afflicted, he might have problems too.”

Captain Barker checked his Board of Trade Ship Captain's Medical Guide, but found little enough to be done.

Over the next week, Captain Barker and Mr. Gronberg visited the sailors in the fo'c'sle. Several sailors were showing the signs of frost-bite. Lindstrom's fingers and Hanson's toes were the worst, turning from red to white, and then from white to yellow. One of Lindstrom's fingers appeared to be recovering but the other two were not. When Hanson's toes and Lindstrom's fingers shifted from yellow to the color of a ripe plum, Captain Barker knew what he had to do.

“Mr. Gronberg, Hanson's and Linstrom's fingers and toes have turned gangrenous. They'll need to come off.”

“Yah. I'll sharpen my chisels, sir. Best way to do it.”

The next day during the first dogwatch, the captain, carpenter and sail maker made their way forward to the fo'c'sle.

“Let me see your fingers and toes," the captain demanded of the two men. Hanson winced as he took off his seaboot and sock. His two smallest toes on his left foot were shriveled and blackened. Lindstrom's third finger on his right hand looked no better. His other fingers were somewhat improved. The captain could only nod to Gronberg. He was right. The blackened fingers and toes had to come off.

With rum to both sanitize the area and sedate the sailors, Gronberg removed the gangrenous toes and fingers. A single blow with his maul and the chisel lopped off the blackened digits, followed by a howl of pain from the sailor. Pugsley followed just behind to expertly bandage the stumps.

The two sailors wouldn't be fit for duty for weeks. With Whitney laid up in the spare cabin and Hanson and Lindstrom in the fo'c'sle, they had seventeen able sailors left. And the west wind still had them trapped. All they needed was a favoring wind shift, just one good favoring slant.

Mary Barker was in the captain's salon with the children. She had been seasick on and off ever since the westerly winds had started to blow. The children were fine, for which Mary was grateful. How often the children are more resilient than the parents, she thought. Or at least their mother.

Amanda was on the couch playing with Mrs. Murphy, that pathetic little doll, while Tommy was on the cabin sole playing with blocks of wood that the carpenter had given him. God bless Mr. Pugsley and Mr. Gronberg, Mary thought. They had been so kind to the children. Mary steadied herself in the chair as the ship lurched and rolled. She never seemed able to grow accustomed to the motion, to which the children seemed oblivious.

She felt trapped. Her entire world now was the children in this comfortable, if simple, salon and stateroom, with light and warmth on a ship that seemed to be a captive of Cape Horn. She didn't know what to do. There was nothing to be done. She shouldn't be complaining or feeling sorry for herself. She had her children for company and the steward, Walter, took care of them the best he could with all his other duties. James checked in on them whenever he could. She couldn't imagine what it had to be like for James, spending so much time on deck in such ghastly conditions. And the poor sailors having to tend sail in the ice and horrible winds—it was almost beyond imagining.

A moment later, the ship took a particularly violent roll and there was a horrible crash. Smoke filled the cabin. Mary spun around and screamed. The last roll had ripped the screws holding down the stove from the deck. It slid across the cabin, hitting the bulkhead and setting it on fire. Mary, still screaming, scooped up Tommy from up off the cabin sole, grabbed Amanda's hand and dragged her into the companionway. Walter rushed past her and then ran out again.

“Help! The cabin's on fire and the stove is adrift," he yelled as loud as he could.

Captain Barker and Mr. Atkinson arrived in the salon at almost the same instant. Red-hot coals were scattered across the carpets, furniture was broken, part of a bulkhead was smashed and burning. It was hard to see or breathe for all the smoke and soot. Barker grabbed a bucket of wash water from the steward's pantry and threw it on the bulkhead, putting out the fire but adding to the smoke. Making their way to the stove, lying on its side, they saw the rivets that had held the top to the sidewalls were broken and twisted. Barker snorted. "Looks like a dying dragon, don't you think?" He shook his head. "It looks beyond repair to me. Mr. Atkinson. Get your gang in here, take it on deck and toss it overboard.”

Harry, Fred, Tom, Santiago and Jerry arrived in the cabin with broad grins on their faces. They had been in the mess room, but had never ventured in the captain's salon before, and to see it in such a state was somehow very satisfying. They wrapped wet sacking around their hands, and with a couple of hatch beams they hoisted the broken and smoking stove up and out of the cabin and onto the main deck. Timing it with a roll of the ship, they heaved the stove into the ocean and cheered as it sizzled and sank.

A small spare bogie stove was located in the lazarette, and Pugsley and the apprentices set to repairing the damage to the salon as well as they could. With a bit of new paneling and some paint, the salon was at least in order, if still not quite what it had been. Mary and the children now spent most of their time in the stateroom. The crew spent the next week chuckling over the captain's stove coming adrift. It seemed to lift everyone's spirits forward of the mast.

Captain Barker commented to Mate Atkinson, "If I had known that the bloody stove would do this much good I would have loosened the deck bolts myself." Atkinson laughed freely for the first time in what seemed like an age.