PEKING BATTLES CAPE HORN the captain ordered the carpenter to sound the wells to see if she were leaking. In ten or fifteen minutes the carpenter returned and reported, "No water in the wells." However, further inspection revealed that a whole section of the side of the ship, twenty feet across, was bent in, steel plates, frames, and all. Yet the only places that water was coming through the sides was where the sea had broken the glass in some portholes. The skipper said he never had heard of a wave bending in the side of such a ship before. I thought I would go up to the main royal yard to see if I could hold on under such conditions. After waiting until the captain went below , so he wouldn't stop me, I started. But just then the second mate, who had charge of the watch, called out, "You can't go up there!" "I have to go," I told him. "This is what I've come to Cape Horn for." "No," he insisted. "You'll get blown off or shaken off." I didn't agree with him, and he finally said, "Well, you go on your own responsibility. I'm not to blame, whatever happens to you." "All right," I said and went on up . When I had gone about to the height of the upper top's! yard, a sea smashed against the windward side of the ship and sent spray over my head . It takes some force to shoot water up that high against such a gale. Meanwhile the sun occasionally shone down on all the confusion and violence and made dainty rainbows in the flying scud . As I neared the top of the mast I would stop whenever the ship rolled to windward, because I had such difficulty in pulling my feet back against the wind and getting them up to the next ratline. The air rushed past me at about one hundred and fifty miles an hour, making a horrible screeching howl such as I never had heard before. The top of the mast swung in an arc fully three hundred feet at some of the rolls, and these rolls of forty-five degrees often were made in eleven seconds. On at least twenty of the ship's rolls to windward I tried the experiment of hollering just as loud as I could. Yet it was impossible to hear myself. Not the least whisper reached me of the loud noise I must have made. I wouldn't have thought that possible. Once I tried to holler to windward, but nearly a barrelful of the hurricane was driven down my throat, and I gave up that sort of experimenting .
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It was necessary to be very careful of my lips and hold them tight or the wind would take charge of them. Yet they had to be parted enough to let in some air, as one's nose is useless for breathing purposes in a hurricane. A light shower caught me at the top of the mast, and some scattered drops that struck the back of my neck felt like so many birdshot. I had demonstrated to myself that it was possible to hold on, and I went down, got my movie camera, and returned to the mast-top. After tangling my arms and legs up in the ratlines to keep from blowing away, I took movies of the Cape Horn gray backs that went sweeping across the deck of the ship a hundred and seventy-five feet below me. That downlook onto the churning sea as it battered the old Peking and kept filling her decks with its writhing waters, was the grandest sight I ever had looked on. The water got into the ship everywhere, except the cargo hold, and a dozen boys were kept busy bailing out. Most of the sailors slept on the spare sails in the sail locker because their foc'sle was so filled with water. Such big seas came aboard that they couldn't open the foc'sle door, and the only way they could enter was by the skylight. To go into a foc'sle half full of water during such a storm, with sea chests, bunk boards, and suit cases banging and crashing at each roll, was just looking for death . Down below deck the ship creaked as if she might break up at any minute. In the night the steering cable that led to the midships wheel broke. The after wheel was stuck, and the spanker had to be set to keep the vessel up into the wind until the cable was fixed. At noon on Monday we had been driven back eighty-four miles since the previous noon. We took down what was left of the lower tops'! that blew out and set another in its place. I got a piece of the torn sail and started to make a sea bag of it. That was something I would need if we ever got to port. Nearly every sailing-ship seaman has a sea bag . He keeps his clothes in it, and usually has made it himself. One thing we lost in the storm was our shark's tail at the tip of the jib boom. "That was our fair weather charm," I said to Charlie, "and it's gone.'' "Small loss," was his response. "Mighty little good it's done us on this trip."
Salt Pork By Captain James Gaby
Born in New Zealand, Captain Gaby trained in sail aboard the steam auxiliary Amokura, starting in 1910. He then sailed in the barkentine Alexa of 286 tons, trading in the Tasman Sea, leaving her to join the big four-masted bark Potalloch of 2600 tons. After a stint in steam, he returned to sail in the handsome 3-masted bark Dartford. His adventures in six years in sailing ships ranged from bellowing out the choruses to "Shenandoah" to support a shipmate singing on a stage in a music hall, to burying an admired captain at sea aboard the Dartford. Author of the books Mate in Sail and Restless Waterfront, works favorably noticed throughout the seafaring community, he lives in retirement in Australia today, and is Patron of the Cape Homers (Australia).-ED. Picture the scene: A big four masted barque enveloped in a rising gale. Mounting beam seas smash up ::igainst her topsides to thunder over the t'gallant rail with a viciousness that meant peril to the mortal having the misfortune to be caught in the onslaught. The sound of the midday eight bells had been blown away by the wind. A tired, disgruntled, oilskin-clad forenoon watch filed into a dismal flooded fo'c'sle. They had just furled the last of the six t'gallants'ls and that had left them with a hunger that would have made short work of a side of beef. It was pea soup and salt pork day and the mess-kids had been brought into the fo'c'sle by the peggy of the watch. Half throwing them onto the small table, he told the seven hungry men "There y'are. Get that inter yuh and don't tell me there's not a Jonah in this watch. Six t'gallants'ls! Time that port watch did a bit too." Untieing the chin fastening of his sou'wester, he told all and sundry, "Just take a sniff at that salt pork. That's what there is of it.'' His suggestion was quickly acted upon. "By Hell!" exclaimed the first sniffer, "The bloody stuff stinks to high heaven! Damn stuff's rotten! Fancy expecting a man to tackle that." Another had shaken up the pea soup