Part 13

I was triumphant as we sailed away from the island of white natives. I had a dress instead of overalls, feather fans, the screen and a box of coral.

Father was leaning against the spanker mast watching the sails belly out in the wind when I went to him.

“Hey, look, Father, all I got just for a few old charts and books,” and I displayed my treasures.

“Charts? What the hell are you talking about?” he shouted.

“I gave them all the old charts I could find below and the books on navigation and they gave me all these things,” I explained.

He didn’t stop to hear any more. He took me by the back of the neck and almost carried me down in the cabin.

“Now what did you give them?”

I pointed to the empty place where the charts had been.

“How in the hell can I navigate now?” he shouted. This sounds calm as I write it, but Father wasn’t calm. His face was blue he was so mad.

“I’ve heard you tell the sailors lots of times you were so good at navigating that you didn’t need charts,” I answered.

I was sorry a moment later I had traded away my overalls for that native dress, as the dress was no protection for the rope’s end that tattooed my behind. I got a licking, but Father to this day has never bragged about his navigating abilities where I could hear him! But he was too stubborn to go back to the island for his charts. He had to steer by dead reckoning the rest of the trip.

After that visit to Pitcairn, I could see why everyone who has been there wants to go back. Maybe I’ll go there again some day myself. I have heard since that Frances McCoy finally got off the island in a boat which took the natives three years to build, to America. She landed in Seattle, where she began to study medicine as she had dreamed. However, within three months of the time she landed in Seattle she died a pitiful death of brain fever. She was not accustomed to the noise and confusion and strange life of cities and it struck her down before she could attain her ambition of mercy.

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[Illustration]

16 The clouds came down and the sea reached up to meet them and out of their travail a sea monster was born!

I had settled down for a snooze on the mizzen hatch, bored by the monotony of a dull tropic afternoon, when Father’s voice shook the air with a “Clew up the topsails! Down with the foremain and mizzen!”

“Aye aye!” came from the mate on watch. “Aye aye!” echoed the sailors forward, as they ran to their places at the several ropes. We were taken “aback.” Slap! smack! went the sails against the rigging as the wind caught them from the opposite tack.

“Sheet in the jibs!” Father took the wheel from the helmsman and sent him forward to lend a hand on the halyards. I leaped up the ladder to the poop deck. The wind had begun to hum with a vicious steadiness from leeward. The sky darkened over with rioting grey clouds and the sea became a funereal black.

Over the roar of the wind and the falling sails, Father called:

“Waterspout to leeward!”

I looked where he pointed and saw the horizon in turmoil. As I watched, the clouds appeared to come down and the sea reach up to meet them. It was as though the great God of Storms had mated the sky and the sea in anger so that out of the resulting travail might be born the “terror of the sea.”—Then, swaying and bending like a thing alive, whirling always with tremendous momentum, a gigantic hourglass sped with terrific pace across the waters, wearing blackness about it like a woman’s trailing cloak. To me its base seemed the horizon, its top the middle of the sky and its path led straight across our bow.

“Get the wind under your tail and give a hand here,” called Father.

“What’s going to happen?” I yelled.

“We’ll all be sucked to hell if we cross its course. This damned wind is shooting us right into the belly of the spout.”

I grabbed half of the spanker boom tackle and tried to sheet in its slack. As the sail luffed I got in a few feet, only to lose them when the ship rolled back to leeward and snatched the ropes from my hands.

“Pull in the tackle,” ordered Father as if he were commanding a regular sailor. I gritted my teeth and hauled again, but in vain. The wind was too strong for my single strength. Closer swept the waterspout, swelling and reaching like a living monster eager to destroy relentlessly anything in its path.

Down on the deck the men sweated and heaved on the ropes to get down the sails. Still the ship went forward, the current and wind taking us ahead at the rate of two knots an hour with no sails up, except the truant spanker sail that I couldn’t haul in. I heard Swede groaning and calling a breathless chantey as he led his watch lashing down the main boom. Bulgar, Nelson and McLean were straddled on the foot ropes of the jibboom struggling to lash down the jibs which flapped and ballooned.

It was all chance and our fate rested in the lap of the gods.

Now there are all sorts of sea traditions and superstitions about waterspouts. Some grave scientists who never went to sea write learnedly that a waterspout does not and cannot sink a ship. But no sailor ever would agree with those scientists and when you consider on the one hand that waterspouts are tornadoes on the ocean and on the other hand see what tornadoes do to cities on the land the justice of the sailor’s attitude seems evident. A spout starts when a whirling, funnel-shaped cloud hanging from a bunch of storm clouds dips down and hits the water. The swirling wind starts a swirl of water and just as the land tornado picks up a house and drops it a quarter of a mile away, so the water tornado picks up its swirling column of water and carries it along. Surface fish, driftwood, anything in its path goes up to tear, like a huge hourglass, across the sea. But so temperamental is the sea tornado that anything which changes the current of air, will break its hold and the swirling upraised column collapses, dropping its tons on tons of water back into the sea to crush anything beneath.

And, caught apparently right in the path of our waterspout, that was the fate we faced. It is funny in a crisis how little things catch your attention. With that waterspout racing toward us on the wind, the men had to cling on with their knees and stomachs to keep from being whisked off into the sea. I had never seen any of our crew show such real fear in my life. They were as pale as the white canvas they were trying to reef in, for a waterspout was no ordinary hazard. No calculations or navigations could estimate what dizzy course it might take. I found myself listening to the frenzied cries of the sea birds that came down from the sky to seek the protection of the sea against the angry chaos of the air above. Whenever sea birds fly low on the water in a storm it is proof that the winds of the heavens are too vicious—too conflicting for their wings. Rats leaving a sinking ship are not as fatal a sign to mariners as defeated sea birds. The smaller birds lasted longer under the beating of the wind than the big ones. An albatross, with a spread of six feet of wings, flapped helplessly in the valley of the swells.

For the first time in the midst of danger my father didn’t sing. He bit his lips together in grim determination and never once took his eye off the fast approaching waterspout. He turned the helm and threw the ship into the belly of the swells, a move that no sane navigator would do under ordinary conditions, for a vessel is at the mercy of the sea once she loses her balance in the trough of the breakers.

With almost an agonized screech he called the crew aft:

“For the love of Christ get this spanker in before we go nose in to croaking.” Swede, the mate, Oleson and McLean, who had come in off the jibboom, clambered up the deck. They hauled on the spanker tackle. The rope wouldn’t give to their pulls. A knot had become tangled in the block on the end of the boom, and that boom was swinging out over the sea about fifteen feet.

“Send a man out to clear it,” ordered Father. Nelson volunteered.

“Now hold on out there,” the mate advised him as he started out the swinging tackle, holding on with his feet and shinnying along like a monkey on a stick. Once when the vessel rolled heavily the boom dipped to the water and the waves lapped Nelson, almost sucking him under. But he held fast. The other sailors stood at position on deck ready to haul it in the second the block was free.

After what seemed hours, but in fact was only a few moments, Nelson called: “Take it away,” and with one accord the men on deck began to pull in the truant boom. Nelson hung on to the boom as they pulled it in. The boom on a big ship is handled very much as you handle the boom on a little fishing boat. There is a pulley block fastened to the end of the boom and a pulley block fastened to the deck and the boom is controlled by three strands of tackle running over the two blocks, the free end of the tackles being cleated down on the deck. To help in the handling of the boom as it swings over and to ease the strain, the block on deck is fastened to a steel coupling which slides along a three foot steel rod riveted at each end to the deck. This coupling is enclosed in a steel lined wooden box or hood to protect the coupling from rusting. The block itself is outside the hood and slides along the top of the grooved opening. The wind had eased a little and the boom began to swing over so fast that the tackle showed a few feet of slack. However, the strain had been so heavy that the steel coupling had jammed slightly at the end of the rail. McLean reached down in the opening at the top of the hood to push the steel coupling free and hurry the boom over. Then the wind suddenly veered back a point, caught the spanker and slung it over the side again with a terrific jolt. A gruesome shriek of pain split the roar of the wind and rattle of ropes and McLean fell in a heap over the hood. His arm, just above the elbow, had been caught and crushed in the grip of the steel coupling. The wind backed up the force of the boom that held taut the tackles.

McLean was moaning. I heard a stifled, agonised “O Jesus” come from him. But a man’s life is of little consequence when the fate of a ship is at stake. That boom had to be hauled in or lost, no matter what happened to McLean. But with the man’s arm crushed in the jammed coupling and his body lying across the block the boom could not be pulled in.

“Chop away the jaws of the spanker boom,” came Father’s voice. No man could be spared to do anything for McLean until the ship was safe. Nelson had found his way back along the boom, holding on to the leachings of the sail and was safe on deck now. With axes and crowbars the crew set about chopping away the spanker boom. Better that it sink into the sea than push us on into the path of the waterspout. I ran below and brought back a big mug full to the brim with whiskey for McLean. We had no chloroform or morphine on board, but the whiskey at least would help him to endure. In my innocence I thought later it might knock him out completely. He lay over the block, quiet except for a low monotonous moaning. His breathing was very shallow. The veins in his temples bulged in big throbbing cords. I poured the entire mugful of whiskey down his throat. It might have been water for any effect it had. The men hacking for their lives at the jaws of the boom and the rigging had done their work. The boom crashed into the sea taking with it riggings and stanchions of the railing. But even free of the boom the ship went forward.

“We haven’t got a chance,” I heard Father mutter. He saw the waterspout was traveling at a course and speed sure to bring it close up across our bow.

Suddenly he shouted: “Joan, get my rifle!” I turned to run below for it and as I was disappearing down the companionway I heard his next command:

“Every man below the decks!” I could hear voices mumbling dissent, and Father’s voice rose above the crew’s as though he were beating them with his voice: “Get the hell below, you goddamned fools, or you won’t have a Chinaman’s chance!”

I brought up the rifle and handed it to him. He had lashed the wheel. “Throw a canvas over McLean,” said Father through his teeth, “and then you get below!” Nelson had already got a big piece of canvas and he completely covered McLean with it. I ducked below without hesitation; I didn’t know what was going to happen. I wondered if Father was going to use the rifle to kill McLean and mercifully end his suffering. I hadn’t been below two minutes before I heard the report of his rifle! Then several reports followed in rapid succession and Father came running down the cabin himself, first closing the hatchdoor on the companionway.

“The shot busted it,” he said simply.

We went to the lee portholes and looked out. Father said the shots from his rifle had started new currents in the air that broke the rhythm of the waterspout. Like a wounded beast the spout seemed to stagger and then collapse, dropping tons on tons of water, fish, and driftwood back to the sea. The spout when it collapsed was nearly half a mile away but the low heavy black clouds it came from were already over us and now they opened and emptied themselves just above the ship.

Did you ever see a cork under a waterfall? That was our ship beneath that downpour. Father had known what was coming and had saved the crew by forcing them below, for not one could have kept on the deck under the force of that bombardment with the ship pitching and wallowing in the conflicting currents and undertows like some blinded thing.

McLean covered with canvas and held fast by his crushed arm was the only living thing exposed.

I felt trapped down there below. The air was suffocating. The pressure of the humidity was so great that my pulses beat rapidly and I broke out in a cold sweat. Then in less than fifteen minutes the rain stopped abruptly, the clouds disappeared, the sun burst forth and the sea calmed as though nothing had happened.

“There won’t be a whiff of wind now,” Father said with disgust. With typical sailor fatalism he had dismissed the horror of the waterspout but he hadn’t forgotten the trapped man above.

“We got to get that poor beggar out of that trap,” he said, referring to McLean. I went on deck with Father to help him. We lifted the canvas off McLean’s body. He lay cramped over in a doubled position, softly moaning.

“Can you stand it for another few minutes, old man?” Father asked.

He seemed to come from far away to answer: “Jesus, Captain, take a pop at me with your rifle and finish it. I can’t stand this!” His eyes were bulging in excruciating pain.

“Why, you goddamned bawling sissie, shut your face or I’ll leave you squawking there all night!” Father yelled at him. The voice was terrible to hear but there were tears in Father’s eyes. His bullying tone of voice was a trick to give McLean the guts to stand the ordeal he had to go through.

I was still shaking with fright from the terror of the waterspout as Father spoke to me and sent me below to get some iodine and his razor. When I brought them on deck to him he was leaning over, examining the steel couplets that had clamped McLean’s arm.

“I’ll have to cut your arm off, McLean. It’s the only chance in hell you got to get out of this steel trap,” he said.

McLean looked at Father, saw that he meant it, and that it was the only way to save him, and he forced a smile.

“Go ahead, Captain, but do it quick,” he begged.

Father beckoned me to stand over McLean and keep his head lifted up. I got my arms under McLean’s shoulders and heaved him up in a semi-sitting position. Bulgar and Swede held his legs. Another sailor brought a couple of buckets of sea water. Father twisted a tourniquet of rope around McLean’s arm. Then he swabbed the arm just above the place where it was gripped by the steel, and cut in with his razor. McLean tried to watch him, but bracing his back with my leg, I put my arm across his eyes so he couldn’t see himself being butchered. Bulgar and Swede jammed down on his legs to keep him from thrashing about. In about a minute Father had all the flesh sliced away from the bone. He leaned over to Swede and whispered. Swede went over to the rail and got a steel belaying pin. He raised it over McLean’s arm. I saw Father nod and say “Now.” And Swede brought the belaying pin down across the exposed bone of McLean’s limb and broke the bone as clean as a hound’s tooth.

“A bucket of sea water, quick,” called Father. They poured two full buckets of water over the stub of McLean’s arm. Ocean water is the best disinfectant against blood poisoning there is on a ship. I hated the job we had to do, for I could feel McLean trembling like one stricken with palsy. Blood sputtered out of his arm over the deck and over us. He began to laugh in a delirious frenzy. I kept hold of his head and four sailors gripped and held him so he couldn’t move until Father had stitched up the shreds of flesh with catgut and a surgical needle. Then we carried him below and put him in my father’s bunk. He had small chance of living, but Father kept that spark alive with big doses of whiskey every half hour. He left me to attend him, for he had duties on deck that were more serious. With the spanker boom gone, the rigging destroyed and no wind to steady us against the rising cross swells, there was danger of us “shaking our sticks (or masts) out.”

For twenty-four hours the crew labored clearing the debris. They set up a makeshift spanker sail, “jury rig” it was called, in place of the boom. The horror we had been through was duly written down in our ship’s log as follows:

“Thursday, p.m. 160 latitude, 32 longitude sighted waterspout. Shots from rifle broke it. Seaman J. McLean laid up unable to work. Crew busy clearing ship’s deck.”

Four months later McLean left the ship. There is no place on a ship for a one-armed sailor.

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[Illustration]

17 Strip poker and female struck—which of course have nothing to do with each other

When I was about sixteen, we took a trip to the Line Islands to get a cargo of guano.

“What in the hell is the use of getting a ship full of bird dirt?” I asked my father as we neared our destination.

He was balanced on the taffrail cleaning and oiling his sextant when I approached him.

“Well, besides stinkin’ worse than copra and bein’ a rotten cargo to carry through the heat of the tropics, it’s used for fertilizer and ammonia. Land folks ain’t so particular what they use to make their food grow,” he said.

I was keenly interested, for we were going to a part of the South Seas that was unknown to me. So much has been written about the colorful atmosphere of the South Sea islands, but little has been said about the tragedy that inhabits some of the desert rocks along the Equator known on the charts as the Line Islands.

No tropical foliage flourishes there, no sea blue lagoons, no fruits, flowers and long golden beaches enhance their nakedness. They are barren reefs, spewed up out of the sea by submarine volcanoes. As you approach them they look like snow-capped rocks with a fringe of white foam edging them from the breakers that crash against their cliffs. The screech of white gulls fills the air for miles around. The guano islands are the home of the sea fowl. There they lay their eggs in mating season. Millions of birds find those rock islands every year. The rocks are hardly fit for human habitation, yet a few men survive on them.

The French government owns the greatest number of those guano islands, and the income from them amounts to a small fortune every year.

I’ll always remember my trip to those places for two reasons. First, it was on that voyage that I was introduced to the mysteries of strip poker and second, I saw a man so “female struck” that he swam a mile through a rough sea to get away from me.

The night before we sighted the Islands, Fred Nelson, Swede, Bulgar and Oleson were sitting in the lee scupper under the fo’c’s’le head playing poker by the dim green glow of the starboard running light. I wasn’t allowed forward of the mizzen mast unless my Father was with me, for that was the sacred domain of the crew. However, I went forward every time I got a chance, when Father wasn’t looking. This particular night I waited until I heard him snoring on his settee before I tried it. Running along in the shadow of the sails on the leeward side I came upon the four men in the midst of the game.

They didn’t pay the least attention to me. I stood by and watched them for about five minutes and then I butted in.

“Deal me a hand, will you?” I asked.

Swede looked up at me and then spat a big stream of amber juice over the rail. Oleson pretended he hadn’t heard me, and Bulgar just scowled his disapproval of my presence. However, Fred Nelson was more sociable.

“Sure, Skipper, you can play next hand—but I advise you not to. This is strip poker we’re playing.”

For the first time I noticed certain oddities in the men’s appearance. Swede had on nothing but his underdrawers. His shirt and dungarees were piled beside Oleson. Bulgar’s pipe and leather belt were in front of Nelson. When the hand was finished Oleson handed over his clasp knife to Nelson also.

“See what it is? Now do you want to sit in?” asked Swede.