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.