Читать книгу Through the South Seas with Jack London - Martin Johnson H. - Страница 7

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After we passed out of the Golden Gate and headed seaward on our voyage, there followed twenty-seven days that are almost beyond description. One cannot describe them by comparing them with anything else, for probably since the world began there has never been anything quite like them. Suffice it to say that these twenty-seven days were the most wild and chaotic that human beings ever experienced.

We headed south, hoping to pick up with the northeast trades. The port for which we were making lay approximately twenty-one hundred miles away, in a straight line. But while we ignored the straight line, and were in no particular hurry, we nevertheless fairly raced over the water. We couldn't help ourselves. The Snark tore along before the wind despite all handicaps.

"I wish some of the crack sailors of the Bohemian Club could see us now!" Jack exclaimed, exultantly. "They said the Snark could not run—that her lines wouldn't permit it. Well, here's something to make them sit up and revise their criticism—but unfortunately they can't see!"

The water began to get rough. A queer sensation kept asserting itself right in the region of my stomach, p050 and I knew only too well what it portended. As the moments went by, this feeling recurred more frequently, each attack a little more aggravated than the one before it. The sea grew boisterous. It began to lash itself into crested waves.

The galley or kitchen of the Snark was tucked away to one side, and was not large enough for two small men to enter, close the door, and then turn around. As a matter of fact, if I was handling a dish of any size, I had to back out of the door to turn around, myself. For the first meal, I decided that I would try some fried onions, a nice roast with dressing, some vegetables, and some pudding; so I got out about a half-peck of onions, and by the time I had finished peeling those onions in that little galley, I decided that onions were all that was needed for that meal. Did you ever peel onions in a kitchen cupboard? That is practically what I was doing. My eyes were watering so that I couldn't see, and my nostrils and throat were burning so that I couldn't talk. The entire crew was kind enough to say that they liked onions, anyway.

Tochigi served the dinner, and we all ate. Then I made for my bunk, feeling, as Captain Eames put it, "rather white around the gills." As soon as Tochigi had served the dinner, he got out his flute, played the most mournful piece I have ever heard, and as the last note died away, rushed precipitately up on deck and relieved his deathly sickness at the rail. p051 Mrs. London speedily joined him. But Jack and Bert and Captain Eames were as yet unaffected.

The boat was leaking like a sieve. Yes, the Snark, the famous Snark, that had cost thirty thousand dollars, that had been built by expert shipbuilders, and that was declared to be the tightest craft afloat, leaked! The sides leaked, the bottom leaked; we were flooded. Even the self-bailing cockpit quickly filled with water that could find no outlet. Our gasolene, stored in non-leakable tanks and sealed behind an air-tight bulkhead, began to filter out, so that we hardly dared to strike a match. The air was full of the smell of it. I got up from my bunk, staggering sick. Bert started the five-horse-power engine, which controlled the pumps, and by this means managed to get some of the sea out of our quarters below.

At intervals, I was obliged to spend some necessary moments at the rail. The rail was only a foot high; one was obliged to crouch down on deck, clinging tightly, and lean far out, confronted ever by the stern face of the waves. The unutterable, blind sickness of such moments it is beyond the province of words to portray.

Never had I known anything like it! My head ached, my stomach ached, every muscle in my body ached. There were times when it seemed impossible that I should live. When the sickness was at its height, I was blind, deaf, and—need I say it?—dumb. All stabilities were shattered. The universe p052 itself was rocking and plunging through the cold depths of space. And then, for a brief instant, the sickness would subside, and sight and speech and hearing return, and I knew I was on the Snark, the plaything of the waves, and that I, the most desperate of living creatures, was gurgling and babbling my troubles to the uncaring sea. Later, it was laughable, but ye gods! at the time laughter was a stranger to my soul.

It did not ease matters much to discover that the water pouring into the boat had ruined the tools in the engine room, and spoiled a good part of our three months' provisions in the galley. Our box of oranges had been frozen; our box of apples was mostly spoiled; the carrots tasted of kerosene; the turnips and beets were worthless; and last, but not least, our crate of cabbages was so far gone in decay that it had to be thrown overboard. As for our coal, it had been delivered in rotten potato-sacks, and in the swinging and thrashing of the ship had escaped, and was washing through the scuppers into the ocean. We found that the engine in the launch was out of order, and that our cherished life-boat leaked as badly as did the Snark. In one respect, however, I was especially marked out for discomfort. I had the misfortune to be somewhat taller than any of the rest; and so low was the ceiling of the galley and the staterooms downstairs that I could never stand upright, but was obliged to stoop. The only place where I could be really comfortable was on p053 deck, and even here things were so tightly packed that there never was room for a promenade.

We didn't discover all our handicaps at once. It took about a week for us to see all there was to see, and to get acquainted with our little floating home. One of our greatest drawbacks was the fact that never for a moment could we let go of one hold unless we were assured of another. To have let go would have meant being jerked off our feet and thrown sprawling until we fetched up against something stout enough to check the fall. Circus gymnastics is as nothing compared with it. I have seen many acrobatic feats, but nothing resembling in mad abandon the double handspring Mrs. London turned one day when her hand missed its hold and she landed down the companionway in the middle of the table, on top of a dinner which I had just cooked, and which Tochigi was serving.

Toward evening of the first day, we passed a steamer, but could not make her out. The air grew chilly as night set in, and the flying spray in the air made it worse. Our dynamo would not work, so we had nothing but the kerosene lamps to depend on for light. After considerable difficulty, we got the mizzen mainstay and jibsails set, and such of us as were not on watch turned in. Mrs. London's watch was from eight till ten; then I relieved her from ten till twelve, and was in turn relieved by Tochigi.

Bert and Tochigi and I occupied one cabin. Mine p054 was an upper bunk; Tochigi's bunk was beneath mine, and Bert slept across the room. Captain Eames had a room of his own, but just now he was unable to sleep in it, for the water and gasolene drove him out. (Captain Eames waxed facetious, and always referred to his room as "the gasolene chamber.") Each bunk had upholstered springs and mattresses and was fitted with an electric light globe and a fan. Such of the crew as were sleeping had to be packed tight in their bunks with pillows to prevent their being tossed across the room.

On the morning of the second day, Jack awoke me at six-thirty, and I got breakfast. He was the only one who could eat. Not much wind was stirring, but a big swell was running. The Snark was still racing.

"I gave no thought to speed in building the Snark," Jack said that morning. "Only safety and comfort were considered. But if the Snark has fallen below our expectations in some things, she has certainly exceeded them in that."

I hazarded a guess. "At this rate, we will compress seven years' travelling into a few months."

"Oh, we'll find a means to stop her," he was confident, and went upstairs to the wheel.

And now occurred another remarkable thing. Jack started to heave-to, in other words, to place the Snark bow-on to the wind. The first gust of a gale had started, and the Snark, with flying-jib, jib and mizzen taken in, and reefs in the big mainsail and the fore-staysail, p055 was rolling in the trough, the most dangerous position in which a ship can be placed. As Jack put the wheel down to heave-to, the flying jib-boom poked its nose into the water, and broke clean off. Jack put the wheel hard down, and the Snark never responded, but remained in the trough. The ship alternately buried her rails in the stiff sea. The mainsail was flattened down, but without avail. Then Bert tried slacking it off, but that had no effect whatever. Hoping to bring her bow up to the wind, they took in all canvas but the storm trysail on the mizzen, but still the Snark rolled in the trough. Jack declared he had never heard of such a thing before.

"And we must even lose faith in the Snark's wonderful bow," he said, regretfully. "It won't heave-to."

Meanwhile, I had gone back to my bunk, sicker than ever. Tochigi lay prostrate, seeing and hearing nothing. He had not moved since yesterday. Mrs. London and Bert and Captain Eames were able to stay on deck, but even they had occasional tremors and sudden rushes of sickness. Once, in the afternoon, I tried to fool my stomach by eating a cracker, but it was no go. By this time, the floors of stateroom and galley were slushy with water, and all the time more was seeping in. Bert had pumped it out yesterday, but already it was up to our knees. My sickness increased whenever I heard it swashing around on the floor. p056

Night was coming on, a night of storm and wind. The Snark was creaking and groaning, and still in that most dangerous of all positions, the trough. Jack got out his patent sea-anchor, warranted not to dive, and trailed it out a few yards into the sea, then made fast. Almost the minute the line drew taut, the anchor dived. The Snark still raced. Then Jack drew the anchor in, and tied a big timber to it. This time it floated, but it had no deterrent effect at all. The Snark continued to race. Do what they would, the little boat went right ahead, and remained in the trough of the sea, all the while pitching like a cork.

On Thursday, I prepared only two meals. Bert and Captain Eames and Jack ate. Tochigi lay motionless in his bunk, looking like one dead, and I made for my bunk at the first opportunity. Mrs. London was taken desperately sick, and we saw little of her that day. We were still heading south. Before leaving the Golden Gate, Jack had told us of the flying fish that we were sure to pick up with as soon as we got out to sea, and of the dolphin and porpoises and bonita, to say nothing of sharks. But despite his prediction, we saw nothing at all. The Snark headed farther and farther south, the days grew warmer and warmer, but never a shark nor porpoise nor even a flying fish showed up. On Sunday, April 28, we made one hundred and ten miles. The galley floor burst from the pressure of water, and we had a hard time repairing it. For days I wore thigh-boots in cooking, p057 and we kept the five-horse-power engine busy with the pumps. On April 30, one week after leaving Frisco, things looked worse than ever, and we were still sick. There were times when only Jack or Captain Eames could eat anything.