Captain Barker paced the poop deck, watching the high clouds tumbling over the mountain peaks of Staten Island. Every few minutes he dropped down into the chart room to check the barometer. It was rising. It was definitely rising. Captain Barker could feel it. The wind would be shifting. They were getting a slant. A favorable slant of wind that would carry them west.
Second Mate Atkinson called to him from the deck just forward of the poop.
“Sir, the pump suction locked again.”
“How much water is left in the hold?”
Atkinson pulled out his notebook from his back pocket. "Still almost two and half feet, sir. Should I send someone down to clear it again? ”
“No." The captain shook his head. "Secure the boiler. I think that we will be seeing a wind shift soon and we will be getting under way.”
“Yes, sir," Atkinson replied with an energetic nod.
The easterly wind filled in and the Lady Rebecca slipped south around St. John's Point and squared up on a westerly course across a confused sea. Captain Barker took his place on the poop deck, looking unashamedly pleased. By the afternoon watch, Mary and the children, wrapped in blankets, joined him on the deck, to marvel at the favorable breeze and watch the pale sunlight shining on the dancing waters.
The easterly wind died by midnight, leaving the Lady Rebecca becalmed. By the next dawn, the westerlies were back, blowing a full gale. A weary crew struck and furled sails, and the Lady Rebecca slogged along under reefed topsails, slowly working southward against the relentless westerly wind.
12. Fighting the Westerlies
The barometer fell steadily and the westerly gales continued to blow. There was nothing to be done but shorten sail and fore-reach south until they got a favorable slant. When any favorable wind shift came, as it must sooner or later, they needed to make as much westing as they could before the westerlies tried to drive them back again. It was neither complicated nor elegant but it was the only way to round the Horn in the winter.
They had already spent forty-four days before being driven back to Staten Island. How many more days would it take to outlast the prevailing winds? Captain Barker stared at the chart as if there was some secret to be revealed, but he knew the only secret was to hang on, to endure at whatever cost.
He grabbed his dreadnought coat from the hook and climbed the ladder to the deck. He took his place to windward. Mr. Rand, the mate on watch, was just forward by the leeward mizzen shrouds, a dark shape across the windswept deck.
By now, Captain Barker was sure that the crew must hate him as the cause of all their misery. He couldn't change that under any circumstances, so at least he would spend every waking hour, when he was not otherwise attending to ship's business, there on deck. If he asked them to face the wind and storms, so would he. The wind and the spray were bitterly cold but he was their equal. Let the crew look aft and curse his name. That was their right as sailors. As long as they did their duty, their opinions were rightly their own.
He glanced over at Mr. Rand. Now there was a puzzle. There was no doubt that the man was a skilled sailor. He knew his job and he did it well when he chose to. He worried that Rand was plotting against him. That was usually the source of mutinies—an officer who turned the crew against the captain. A mutiny always needed a leader who would goad the crew on and then step up to take command. Was Rand that officer? Did he have the nerve and the backbone to try and take over? That was the real question. So far, he had always backed down. Would he continue or would he finally show some courage?
If it came to that, Captain Barker was sure he had Mr. Atkinson on his side and, in all likelihood, the apprentices. Two men and four boys might just be enough, if it came to a head.
He had worried about signing on Tom Atkinson. He was a young man, inexperienced and being his wife's brother might cause complications in the rigid discipline that had to be maintained aboard ship.
Cape Horn could age a man and Mr. Atkinson had learned quickly. If he ever spoke more than a word to Mary, he did so discreetly, which is all one could ask. Mr. Atkinson had turned out to be his strong right arm. He was sure he would make a fine captain when his day came.
It was early in the afternoon watch in the gray half-light of the Southern Ocean. A squall was coming. He could see it in the darkening of the horizon and the steady rising of the wind in the rigging that progressively stepped up by a half an octave or so. Captain Barker looked out to see if any sailors were exposed but saw that the watch was all huddled abaft the fo'c'sle house—as protected as they could be, given the conditions.
When the squall hit, the Lady Rebecca staggered. She rolled deeply to leeward, scooping up tons of water on her broad deck. A wall of water surged aft as she rolled back, sweeping the deck and breaking against the poop. Captain Barker turned his head so that he wouldn't be blinded by the flying spray.
There was a boom like a cannon blast and the main upper topsail exploded into streamers and shredded rags. For a moment they all stood and looked at the naked bolt-ropes and strips of canvas being lashed by the breeze. Then Mr. Rand shouted, "The watch on deck—cast off the sheets and haul bunts and clews." He bounded down the main deck ladder and continued shouting orders until he was at the mast.
Captain Barker watched his back. Now that was the sort of mate that he could use a few more of. And the mate who refused orders and tried to turn the crew against him, he could use one less.
Will sat shoulder to shoulder with his watch mates in the mess room. It was the largest place below deck to spread out canvas, and it was barely sufficient. Pugsley had a roll of 44-pound, 24-inch by 38-foot No. 1 cotton duck canvas that he was cutting into panels for a new topsail. Their spare set of sails was depleted and the westerlies kept reducing sails to tatters.
The more experienced sailors sewed the seams while the apprentices sewed the bolt-ropes to the canvas under the watchful eye of the sail maker. Will wore a sailor's palm on his right hand, a heavy strip of leather that fitted around his hand with a hole for his thumb. A steel grommet was fastened in the palm, which was where Will placed the end of the threaded heavy needle and, with all the force he could muster, pushed the needle through the two layers of canvas and the hemp bolt-rope. He would then yank the needle free and begin another of the countless stitches it would take to anchor the bolt-rope to just one side of the new sail. He was careful to judge the stitch spacing with his thumb so that Pugsley would not make him cut out and the redo the hard-fought stitches.
Will's hands, arms and back ached. His hands were cracked and bloodied from climbing icy rigging, and with every stitch he winced. Still, being belowdecks was better than being in the weather. The packed-in sailors, working around the sail, warmed the mess room with their body heat, and so while it wasn't warm, neither was Will freezing, which was indeed a welcome change.
Harry was sitting across the table, sewing a well-rubbed seam with perfectly symmetrical herringbone stitches. He looked up and said, "This weather, worst I've seen in all my years at sea. And that ogre of a wave. Aach. I tell anybody 'bout that wave, they call me a liar, for sure.”
Frenchie, across the table, laughed. "You are a liar. All sailors are liars.”
Harry smiled. "Maybe so. Maybe so. At least we've missed the ice. So far anyway. An old shipmate of mine sailed on the Florence out of Glasgow. Ever told you this story?”