The Worst Journey in the World (11 page)

"Clothes, watches and ancient guns, rifles, ammunition, birds
(dead) and all specimens were, with the basket of crockery and
food, soaked with salt water. However, the choice was between
that or leaving them altogether, as anybody would have said had
they seen the huge rollers breaking among the rocks and washing
30 to 40 feet up with the spray; in fact, we were often knocked
over and submerged for a time, clinging hard to some rock or one
of the ropes for dear life. Evans swam off first. Then I was
about half an hour trying to rescue a hawser and some lines
entangled among the rocks. It was an amusing job. I would wait
for a lull, run down and haul away, staying under for smaller
waves and running up the rocks like a hare when the warning came
from the boat that a series of big ones were coming in. I finally
rescued most of it—had to cut off some and got it to the place
opposite the boat, and with Rennick secured it and sent it out to
sea to be picked up. My pair of brown tennis shoes (old ones) had
been washed off my feet in one of the scrambles, so I was wearing
a pair of sea-boots—Nelson's, I found—which, fortunately for
him, was one of the few pairs saved. The pram came in, and
waiting for a back-wash Rennick swam off. I ran down after the
following wave, and securing my green hat, which by the bye is a
most useful asset, struck out through the boiling, and grabbed
the pram safely as we were lifted on the crest of an immense
roller. However, we were just beyond its breaking-point, so all
was well, and we arrived aboard after eight hours' wash and
wetness, and none the worse, except for a few scratches, and
yours truly in high spirits. We stayed there that night, and the
following, Thursday, morning left. Winds are not too favourable
so far, as we dropped the S.E. Trades almost immediately, and
these are the variables between the Trades and the Westerlies.
Still 2500 miles off our destination. Evans has therefore decided
to steer straight for Simon's Town and miss out the other
islands. It is a pity, but as it is winter down here, and the
worst month of the year for storms at Tristan Da Cunha, it is
perhaps just as well. I am longing to get to the Cape to have
your letters and hear all about you. Except for the absence of
news, life aboard is much to be desired. I simply love it, and
enjoy every day of my existence here. Time flies like anything,
and though it must have been long to you, to us it goes like the
wind—so different to that fortnight on the passage home from
India."
^[32]

After the return of the boat's crew we left South Trinidad, and the
zoologists had a busy time trying to save as many as possible of the bird
skins which had been procured. They skinned on all through the following
night, and, considering that the birds had been lying out in the tropics
for twenty-four hours soaked with sea-water and had been finally capsized
in the overturned boat, the result was not so disappointing as was
expected. But the eggs and many other articles were lost. Since the
black-breasted and white-breasted petrels were seen flying and nesting
paired together, it is reasonable to suppose that their former
classification as two separate species will have to be revised.

Soon after leaving South Trinidad we picked up our first big long swell,
logged at 8, and began to learn that the Terra Nova can roll as few ships
can. This was followed by a stiff gale on our port beam, and we took over
our first green seas. Bowers wrote home as follows:

August 7th, Sunday.

"All chances of going to Tristan are over, and we are at last booming
along with strong Westerlies with the enormous Southern rollers lifting
us like a cork on their crests. We have had a stiff gale and a very high
sea, which is now over, though it is still blowing a moderate gale, and
the usual crowd of Albatross, Mollymawks, Cape Hens, Cape Pigeons, etc.,
are following us. These will be our companions down to the South.
Wilson's idea is that, as the prevailing winds round the forties are
Westerlies, these birds simply fly round and round the world—via Cape
Horn, New Zealand and the Cape of Good Hope. We have had a really good
opportunity now of testing the ship's behaviour, having been becalmed
with a huge beam swell rolling 35° each way, and having stood out a heavy
gale with a high sea. In both she has turned up trumps, and really I
think a better little sea boat never floated. Compared to the Loch
Torridon—which was always awash in bad weather—we are as dry as a cork,
and never once shipped a really heavy sea. Of course a wooden ship has
some buoyancy of herself, and we are no exception. We are certainly an
exception for general seaworthiness—if not for speed—and a safer,
sounder ship there could not be. The weather is now cool too—cold, some
people call it. I am still comfortable in cotton shirts and whites, while
some are wearing Shetland gear. Nearly everybody is provided with
Shetland things. I am glad you have marked mine, as they are all so much
alike. I am certainly as well provided with private gear as anybody, and
far better than most, so, being as well a generator of heat in myself, I
should be O.K. in any temperature. By the bye Evans and Wilson are very
keen on my being in the Western Party, while Campbell wants me with him
in the Eastern Party. I have not asked to go ashore, but am keen on
anything and am ready to do anything. In fact there is so much going on
that I feel I should like to be in all three places at once—East, West
and Ship."

"Ten minutes to four, sir!"

It is an oilskinned and dripping seaman, and the officer of the watch, or
his so-called snotty, as the case may be, wakes sufficiently to ask:

"What's it like?"

"Two hoops, sir!" answers the seaman, and makes his way out.

The sleepy man who has been wakened wedges himself more securely into his
six foot by two—which is all his private room on the ship—and collects
his thoughts, amid the general hubbub of engines, screw and the roll of
articles which have worked loose, to consider how he will best prevent
being hurled out of his bunk in climbing down, and just where he left his
oilskins and sea-boots.

If, as is possible, he sleeps in the Nursery, his task may not be so
simple as it may seem, for this cabin, which proclaims on one of the
beams that it is designed to accommodate four seamen, will house six
scientists or pseudo-scientists, in addition to a pianola. Since these
scientists are the youngest in the expedition their cabin is named the
Nursery.

Incidentally it forms also the gangway from the wardroom to the
engine-room, from which it is divided only by a wooden door, which has a
bad habit of swinging open and shutting with the roll of the ship and the
weight of the oilskins hung upon it, and as it does so, wave upon wave,
the clatter of the engines advances and recedes.

If, however, it is the officer of the watch he will be in a smaller
cabin farther aft which he shares with one other man only, and his
troubles are simplified.

Owing to the fact that the seams in the deck above have travelled many
voyages, and have been strained in addition by the boat davits and
deck-houses built on the poop, a good deal of water from this part of the
deck, which is always awash in bad weather, finds its way below, that is
into the upper bunks of our cabins. In order that only a minimum of this
may find its way into our blankets a series of shoots, invented and
carefully tended by the occupants of these bunks, are arranged to catch
this water as it falls and carry it over our heads on to the deck of the
cabin.

Thus it is that when this sleepy officer or scientist clambers down on to
the deck he will, if he is lucky, find the water there, instead of
leaving it in his bunk. He searches round for his sea-boots, gets into
his oilskins, curses if the strings of his sou'wester break as he tries
to tie them extra firmly round his neck, and pushes along to the open
door into the wardroom. It is still quite dark, for the sun does not rise
for another hour and a half, but the diminished light from the swinging
oil-lamp which hangs there shows him a desolate early morning scene which
he comes to hate—especially if he is inclined to be sick.

As likely as not more than one sea has partially found its way down
during the night, and a small stream runs over the floor each time the
ship rolls. The white oilcloth has slipped off the table, and various
oddments, dirty cocoa cups, ash-trays, and other litter from the night
are rolling about too. The tin cups and plates and crockery in the pantry
forrard of the wardroom come together with a sickening crash.

The screw keeps up a ceaseless chonk-chonk-chonk (pause),
chonk-chonk-chonk (pause), chonk-chonk-chonk.

Watching his opportunity he slides down across the wet linoleum to the
starboard side, whence the gangway runs up to the chart-house and so out
on to the deck. Having glanced at the barograph slung up in the
chart-room, and using all his strength to force the door out enough to
squeeze through, he scrambles out into blackness.

The wind is howling through the rigging, the decks are awash. It is hard
to say whether it is raining, for the spray cut off by the wind makes
rain a somewhat insignificant event. As he makes his way up on to the
bridge, not a very lofty climb, he looks to see what sail is set, and
judges so far as he can the force of the wind.

Campbell, for he is the officer of the morning watch (4 A.M.-8 A.M.) has
a talk with the officer he is relieving, Bowers. He is given the course,
the last hour's reading on the Cherub patent log trailing out over the
stern, and the experiences of the middle watch of the wind, whether
rising or falling or squalling, and its effect on the sails and the ship.
"If you keep her on her present course, she's all right, but if you try
and bring her up any more she begins to shake. And, by the way, Penelope
wants to be called at 4.30." Bowers' 'snotty,' who is Oates, probably
makes some ribald remarks, such as no midshipman should to a full
lieutenant, and they both disappear below. Campbell's snotty, myself,
appears about five minutes afterwards trying to look as though some
important duty and not bed had kept him from making an earlier
appearance. Meanwhile the leading hand musters the watch on deck and
reports them all present.

"How about that cocoa?" says Campbell. Cocoa is a useful thing in the
morning watch, and Gran, who used to be Campbell's snotty, and whose
English was not then perfect, said he was glad of a change because he
"did not like being turned into a drumstick" (he meant a domestic).

So cocoa is the word and the snotty starts on an adventurous voyage over
the deck to the galley which is forrard; if he is unlucky he gets a sea
over him on the way. Here he finds the hands of the watch, smoking and
keeping warm, and he forages round for some hot water, which he gets
safely back to the pantry down in the wardroom. Here he mixes the cocoa
and collects sufficient clean mugs (if he can find them), spoons, sugar
and biscuits to go round. These he carefully "chocks off" while he goes
and calls Wilson and gives him his share—for Wilson gets up at 4.30
every morning to sketch the sunrise, work at his scientific paintings
and watch the sea-birds flying round the ship. Then back to the bridge,
and woe betide him if he falls on the way, for then it all has to be done
over again.

Pennell, who sleeps under the chart table on the bridge, is also fed and
inquires anxiously whether there are any stars showing. If there are he
is up immediately to get an observation, and then retires below to work
it out and to tabulate the endless masses of figures which go to make up
the results of his magnetic observations—dip, horizontal force and total
force of the magnetic needle.

A squall strikes the ship. Two blasts of the whistle fetches the watch
out, and "Stand by topsail halyards," "In inner jib," sends one hand to
one halyard, the midshipman of the watch to the other, and the rest on to
foc'stle and to the jib downhaul. Down comes the jib and the man standing
by the fore topsail halyard, which is on the weather side of the galley,
is drenched by the crests of two big seas which come over the rail.

But he has little time to worry about things like this, for the wind is
increasing and "Let go topsail halyards" comes through the megaphone from
the bridge, and he wants all his wits to let go the halyard from the
belaying-pins and jump clear of the rope tearing through the block as the
topsail yard comes sliding down the mast.

"Clew up" is the next order, and then "All hands furl fore and main upper
topsails," and up we go out on to the yard. Luckily the dawn is just
turning the sea grey and the ratlines begin to show up in relief. It is
far harder for the first and middle watches, who have to go aloft in
complete darkness. Once on the yard you are flattened against it by the
wind. The order to take in sail always fetches Pennell out of his
chart-house to come and take a hand.

The two sodden sails safely furled—luckily they are small ones—the men
reach the deck to find that the wind has shifted a little farther aft and
they are to brace round. This finished, it is broad daylight, and the men
set to work to coil up preparatory to washing decks—not that this would
seem very necessary. Certainly there is no hose wanted this morning, and
a general kind of tidying up and coiling down ropes is more what is done.

The two stewards, Hooper, who is to land with the Main Party, and Neale,
who will remain with the Ship's Party, turn out at six and rouse the
afterguard for the pumps, a daily evolution, and soon an unholy din may
be heard coming up from the wardroom. "Rouse and shine, rouse and shine:
show a leg, show a leg" (a relic of the old days when seamen took their
wives to sea). "Come on, Mr. Nelson, it's seven o'clock. All hands on the
pumps!"