A Merry Dance Around the World With Eric Newby (6 page)

Moshulu
continued to shoot up, the yards began to swing, a big sea came over the waist, then another bigger still. There was a shout of ‘Look out, man!’ Then there was a great smashing sound as the Captain jumped at the after wheel and brought his whole weight upon it. Tria and the First Mate were on the other side. Spoke by spoke we fought the wheel while from above came an awful rumbling sound as the yards chafed and reared in their slings, until the ship’s head began to point her course again.

The danger was past, but as the Captain turned away, pale and trembling, I heard him sob: ‘O Christ.’

Suddenly I felt sick at the thought of what might have happened if she had broached-to.

‘O Yesus,’ muttered Sedelquist, his assurance gone, ‘I tought the masts were coming down out of heem.’

The clock in the charthouse began to strike. Before it had finished, more than anxious to be gone, I had made eight bells, but the Mate was already blowing his whistle for all hands. The Captain had had enough, and before Sedelquist and I were relieved at the wheel the royals came in, all the higher fore-and-aft sails, and the mizzen course. It was now 8.30 p.m. Between 4 and 8
Moshulu
logged 63 miles, and the same distance again between eight and midnight.

For many days we had been thinking of Christmas, which this year fell on a Sunday. There had been a good deal of grumbling about this in the fo’c’sle, but even Sedelquist, who knew his rights, and was always threatening to complain to the Finnish Consul over imaginary infringements, wasn’t able to suggest any satisfactory plan for moving Christmas Day to the following Monday in order to get an extra day’s holiday.

In the week before Christmas I was ‘Backstern’
^*
for the second time on the voyage. My job was to wash up for the twenty occupants of the three fo’c’sles whenever mine was a working watch. Kroner performed the same service when I was free. Besides being a romantic, Kroner was a great grumbler and every day he told me I had forgotten to dry the dishcloths in the galley. Every day I told him the same thing. Very often, on the occasions when we did remember to hang them over the range, they were knocked down by the coal-carrying party and trampled in the coal-dust. Kroner drew my washing-up water; I drew his.

To get sea-water for washing-up I tied a rope to a bucket, stood in the lee rigging of the foremast, and dropped it into the sea. Bäckmann had been the first person to do ‘Backstern’ in our watch and he had cast a new teak bucket into the sea on the evening of our spectacular dash into the Atlantic. With
Moshulu
running thirteen to fourteen knots it was lucky that he had not known how to attach the rope to the bucket in a seamanlike manner; if he had, the tremendous jerk when it fetched up at the end of a lot of slack would probably have pulled him over the side. As it was, the knot came undone and the bucket sank before the eyes of the First Mate and the Captain, who were interested spectators. I had been charged for a hammer. Bäckman was put down for a teak bucket.

With the water safely on deck my troubles were not over, for it still had to be heated over the galley fire, and if the ‘Kock’ didn’t like you he would move it as far as possible from the hot part of the stove. Like all cooks he was subject to sudden glooms and rages. It was unfortunate that he had taken a dislike to Kroner, who had been rude to him about some bacon instead of keeping his mouth shut and throwing it over the side, but he had nothing against me. Thanks to the ‘Kock’s’ misplaced malevolence, Kroner enjoyed a week of scalding and abundant water whilst I suffered lukewarm water one day, total loss on another, and on a third found a long sea-boot stocking stewing merrily away in a bucket topped with a yeasty-looking froth.

The washing-up basin was a kerosene can sawn in half, the sharp edges beaten down so that it looked like some revolting curio from an oriental bazaar. These were the days before detergents, and their place was taken by sand, with some ropeyarn as a scourer. The everyday work on the ship had already battered my hands beyond recognition so that they resembled bloodstained hooks; and now the salt water penetrated cuts and scratches, making them swell and split. There was a vivid and appropriate name for these sores which never seemed to heal.

It was an unspoken rule that the ‘Backstern’ washed up first in his own fo’c’sle in case he was called on deck by ‘två vissel’ – two whistles. After the port side was finished, he washed up for the starboard watch. Then for the daymen amidships. Theirs was a gloomy hole, without ports and filled with stale cigarette smoke, its only natural illumination a skylight, rarely opened, shedding a permanent dusk into it. To one side was a tiny rectangular table piled high with the most ghastly debris of
après déjeuner
: islands of porridge; lakes of coffee in which cigarette ends were slowly sinking; great mounds of uneaten salt bacon; squashed putty-coloured fish-balls, and, in the tropics, almost phosphorescent herring. At other meals mountains of bones and a warm feral smell made the fo’c’sle more like a lair of wild beasts than a human habitation.

On the Monday of Christmas week washing-up had been terrible. There was heavy rain and it had come on to blow hard. ‘Like sonofa-beetch, like
helvete,’
said Sandell as he came from the wheel. I was pressed for time as I had second look-out, which meant washing up three fo’c’sles in less than an hour. Kroner, the damn fool, had forgotten to put the drying-up cloths in the galley and there was only one tin of hot water instead of three. To make things worse the ship was heeling at such an angle that it was impossible to stand upright.

I tore the tail off a good shirt, wedged the kerosene can against the rim of the table, and put each wet irreplaceable piece of crockery in the locker as I washed it. When I finished I took them all out, dried them, and put them back piece by piece. Around me the bunks were full of men trying to sleep, but the ship was a pandemonium of noise, the wind roaring in the rigging, the footsteps of the Officer of the Watch thumping overhead, the wheel thudding and juddering, and the fo’c’sle itself filled with the squeaks and groans of stressed rivets. From the hold came a deep rumbling sound as though the ballast was shifting. I dropped a spoon and five angry heads appeared from behind little curtains and told me to ‘Shot op.’ Eight bells sounded and it was my ‘utkik’, the hour of lookout on the fo’c’sle head.

There was a fearful sunset. The ship was driving towards a wall of black storm cloud tinged with bright ochre where the sun touched it. About us was a wild, tumbling yellow sea. South of us two great concentric rainbows spanned the sky and dropped unbroken into the sea. At intervals everything was blotted out by squalls of rain and hailstones as big and hard as dried peas. It only needed a waterspout to complete the scene.

Soon I became clammy and forlorn, gazing into the murk. It was dark now and the rain was freezing in the squalls. Above the curve of the foresail everything was black, and from the rigging, right up the heights of the masts came the endless rushing of the wind. To warm my hands I pushed them into the pockets of my oilskin coat and found two deep cold puddles. In one of them was my last handkerchief.

After an hour of ‘utkik’ I in my turn became ‘påpass’, the man who called the watch on deck if it was necessary and woke the next man relieving the helmsman. During my spell on the foredeck there were ‘två vissel’. Welcoming the opportunity to exercise my frozen limbs I flung open the fo’c’sle door and screamed, ‘Two vistle, ut på däck’ in the most hair-raising voice I could manage.

Inside, water was swirling pieces of newspaper and bread about the floor. It broke over Yonny Valker and Alvar, those primitive men sleeping down there, awash and shining like whales. The other five members of our watch were dozing perilously on the benches. Everyone was fully dressed in oilskins, too wet to get into their bunks. The oil-lamp was canting at an alarming angle and Bäckmann hit his head on it as he started up from the table. He didn’t feel anything because he was still asleep. One by one the others lurched out of the fo’c’sle, and as they encountered the blast on deck they cursed the owner for owning
Moshulu
, the Captain for bringing us here, the Mate for blowing his ‘vissel’, and me for being ‘påpass’ and hearing it.

Little Taanila was at the wheel, clinging to it like a flea, while the Mate tried to prevent it spinning and hurling him over the top on to the deck.

‘Två män till rors,’ shouted the Mate, and Bäckmann went as help wheel to Taanila.

‘Mesan,’ said the Mate and we tailed on to the downhaul of the largest of the three fore-and-aft sails on the jigger mast. It jammed, but we continued to take the strain. Suddenly it broke and we rolled in a wet heap in the scuppers.

‘That ploddy Gustav,’ said Sedelquist, speaking unlovingly of the owner who was reputed to be very close with ropes. ‘He vonts—’

By Friday the rain was wearing us all down. Breakfast was terrible. Black beans and fried salt bacon from the pickle cask. The margarine and sugar had both given out on Wednesday. We were ravenous and talked of nothing but food. But at noon Sandell reported that the hens had disappeared from the henhouse and that the Cook was making huge puddings. I saw them myself when I was fetching the washing-up water. They looked like sand castles. We were agog.

At last it was Saturday, 24th December, Christmas Eve. Christmas Eve was the principal Finnish celebration. It was our free watch in the morning, and now came the opportunity for the great ‘Vask’ in the slimy little ‘Vaskrum’; but the joy of putting on clean clothes was worth the discomfort. Even Yonny and Alvar had a ‘Vask’, and some of us whose beards had not been a success shaved. Then we put on our best clothes: clean dungarees, home-knitted jerseys, and new woollen caps. Bäckmann even put on a collar and tie. This was too much for the more rugged members of the watch, and a committee was formed to discuss the question. They were very serious about it and decided he was improperly dressed for the time and place. Nevertheless he continued to wear a tie, and presently I put one on myself, with a tennis shirt and flannel trousers with the mud of Devon lanes still on the turn-ups. It was wonderful to wear clothes that followed the contours of the body after so many weeks of damp, ill-fitting garments. In the splendour of our new robes we slept till noon. Then, except for wheel and look-out, work ceased for everyone.

Like the apprentices in
A Christmas Carol
preparing the warehouse for the party, we put the finishing touches to the fo’c’sle. Bäckmann washed the paint with hot water and green soap. I removed a large number of bugs from the bunkboards and drowned the eggs. Taanila scrubbed the floor; Hermansonn polished our door-knob, while the others removed horrid debris from the unoccupied bunks and shook all the blankets on deck. The floor and tables were washed with hot soda and burnished white with sand. Then we sat down and looked around at what we had done. It did seem more like home. It would need to for tonight to be a success. ‘Like home,’ said Sedelquist. ‘Like hell.’

At half past one I threw the last lot of washing-up water over the side. My week of ‘Backstern’ was over for a whole month, and I was heartily sick of it. Cleaning the ‘skit hus’ was preferable. From three until four I was at the wheel. The wind was ENE and the ship steered herself except for a slight touch from time to time. The afternoon was cold, the decks were deserted. Everyone was below having haircuts, shaving, trimming beards, or squeezing pimples. Just before I was relieved the First Mate came on deck. A startling transformation had been effected in him. He was no longer grimy-looking; the ginger beard and moustaches that had given him so much the appearance of a Cheshire Cat had disappeared. Instead he was very stiff and self-conscious in a gold-braided reefer suit, his head bowed beneath an enormous peaked cap, also gold-braided, on which was pinned the white house badge, a white flag with G.E. in black letters on it. With dismay I realized that without the beard his was not the sort of face I cared for at all. Indecently bare, it was shorn of its strength. I think he realized this, for he giggled, almost apologetically. This moment marked the beginning of a certain coolness in our relationship.

‘Coffee-time’ brought the first fragments of a great avalanche of food. On Saturdays the bread was always different; today it arrived in the shape of scones. There were a great number, they were very good, and we ate the lot in seven minutes.

As the dinner hour approached the agony of waiting became almost unbearable. We roamed about the fo’c’sles like hungry lions. Outside, the rain beat down on the deck. The weather had broken up soon after five, but the wind blew steadily and we were all confident that there would be no work on deck unless it shifted. Otherwise the ship would carry topgallants and topmast staysails throughout the night. When it grew dark, at seven o’clock, ‘tre vissel’ summoned all hands. We crowded the well-deck. Looking down on us was the Captain, all braid and smiles; the First and Second Mates, less braid and fewer smiles; and Tria, no braid but more smiles than all of them put together. I had never seen such splendid uniforms.

The Captain made a little speech. Addressing us as ‘Pojkar’ (Boys), he wished us ‘God Jul’ and told us to come aft to his saloon after dinner. When he had finished we tipped our caps to him, mumbled our thanks, and made a rush below. Two sheets were produced and spread on the table. We gathered all our lamps and lanterns and hung them round the bulkheads.

The food was brought in from the galley. Great steaming bowls of rice and meat; pastry, sardines, salmon, corned beef, apricots, things we had forgotten. A bottle of Akvavit and the set piece, a huge ginger pudding, its summit wreathed in steam.