The Downeaster: Deadly Voyage

by Paul Thomas Fuhrman

  As Priest left the wheelhouse, both Mr. Carver and Mr. Lennon were waiting for him. As Duder was behind him, he did not see Sam look in his direction, smile, and then nod to the mates. He did hear Mr. Lennon say, “Good lad. Yews understand da lesson?” He felt Mr. Carver’s massive hand fold over his right shoulder, then pat his back once. Nothing more was said, and Priest assumed his duty station aloft in the foremast. Both watches were still on deck. Mr. Carver still had the deck. The wind headed up to the southeast, still blowing fierce gales and snow squalls. It was time to relieve the watch, but both remained on deck.

  Eight Bells, Middle Watch (4 a.m.)

  Griffin was intensely involved but silent. His mind must be aware of everything happening to the ship.

  Fresh gale wind pushing water against an ebbing tide. South-southwest by one-quarter west. Seventy fathoms beneath us. Near out of the strait; the head seas are slacking.

  “This is nothing, boys. See, I ain’t worried. Tell ’em you heard the old man say it.”

  Should we have waited? No. How far can I sail to the west in Drake’s Passage? Look at the barometer. Holding, bad weather. I’ll warm my hand near the binnacle lamp.

  ***

  Priest was back aloft, on the twisting foremast, holding fast to the jackstay with bleeding hands. He could see nothing in the snow beyond the bowsprit. The running lights colored the airborne snow in arcs of gentle red and green.

  Priest felt a difference in the sea; they had to be through the strait. The head seas gave way to a gale, and it did not beat them so badly. He had changed into oilskins and secured them around his waist with a rope. He was wet around his collar and the cold wind robbed him of his breath, his boils had broken, and there were cracks beneath his knuckles. He bled, but this did not concern him. Only staying out on the foot-ropes, aloft and not plummeting to his death, occupied his mind.

  Two Bells, Forenoon Watch (9 a.m.)

  Griffin ordered, “Mr. Carver, wear ship, bring her west. Set the courses, single-reef the topsail, set the jib and spanker.”

  At noon of the next day, Cape Horn bore true north and astern of the ship. She was forty-seven days, sixteen hours from New York. But she had still not completed her windward passage around Cape Horn.

  Griffin remarked to Carver, “The strait, the Horn, ain’t for the timid. They’ll push them back, even a man like Bligh.”

  Providence continued southing by inches and, when possible, sailing to westward. When her captain was alone in his cabin, the ship’s medicine chest was sitting on his desk and open. He held a bottle of laudanum in his left hand, moved it to his lips to remove the cork with his teeth. As he felt the cork in his teeth, he stopped, replaced the bottle in its slot, and then closed the chest’s lid. He spoke aloud, “No, Kayleigh, I won’t.”

  Thirty-Seven

  The Drake Passage Southing

  I would hasten my escape from the windy storm and tempest.

  —Psalm 55:8

  Thursday, July 25, 1872

  Lat 56˚40΄00˝S, Long 67˚25΄00˝W

  July 25, 1872

  Dear Mother,

  I am so sorry there have been so few letters. I am writing this letter now when I should be sleeping. I wish I could talk to you and father. The work on this ship continues day and night and I often think of doing only one thing and that is to sleep. Also, I do not know when this letter will reach you. Hearing you and Father argue about me was the most painful experience I’ve ever had. I was the cause. By now, I know pain, cold, hunger, and have an almost insane desire to be warm and to sleep. I feel so guilty.

  We are at the bottom of the world, the Southern Ocean sailing south by southwest. We want to sail west but that is where the winds blow from and a sailing ship cannot sail directly into the wind. So we find ourselves sailing toward Antarctica and inching ever westward against the wind to round Cape Horn and to finally turn north to complete our voyage to San Francisco.

  My ribs ache from being seasick. My hands have salt sores and I’ve grown something of a beard. Smallbridge, my best friend, says it looks like a small rat’s nest. Sometimes the beard is caked with ice as are my eyebrows. That is not at all uncommon among my fellow sailors, my brothers.

  Today at 4 P M we reefed the courses and the lower topsails to protect them from ripping apart. I will try to explain. To reef a sail is pulling it up from its bottom, folding the part that will not be used, and lashing the shortened sail to its yard. Imagine pulling up your skirt to show the tops of your shoes to another lady.

  Peleg Carver, the first mate, taught me to estimate wind by observing the sea. The waves are over 20 feet high and the wind has to be 40 knots or more. The sea might have been beautiful had I not been suffering from its fury. The tops of the waves spill over and cover the waves in white foam. The wind picks up the foam and fills the air with spindrift making it difficult to see. The ship takes white and green water over its side, the starboard side. Anything not lashed down or secured would be carried over the side. The sea crashes, the wind howls, and the ship moans.

  We also would be in danger of being swept overboard were it not for the lifelines that are rigged so we can hold on to them. This morning I had to check the lashings we use to hold down our longboat and our whaleboat on their cradles. I walked the deck clutching the lifeline and moved in water up to my waist. The water was so cold it hurt like being stabbed with a knife.

  There are only 24 of us to work the ship. When the order was given to reef the lower topsails, the captain turned the ship away from the wind to keep her steady in the water so we could safely go aloft. The first sail we reefed was the fore lower topsail. Some work such as spilling the wind from the sail and raising it to the reefing points is done on deck using the running rigging.

  When all the work that can be done on deck is finished, men have to climb aloft and lay out on the yard to stretch the sail and lash it to the yardarms. We were forty feet above the deck and out over the sea. When the ends of the sails are lashed to the yardarms, we let loose of the jackstay, crouch below the yard, and balance ourselves on the footropes, and wrap our arms around the sail to tie the excess sail to the yard with the reefing points.

  All the time my hands were very stiff and it hurt to close them. Since my boots were wet inside, my feet were cold and almost numb. I climbed though. When we let go of the jackstays, Jeremy Ernst, another apprentice, froze from fear and started to fall. I grabbed his right arm with my left and held on to the reefing point with my right hand. I do not know where the strength or the quickness to do this came from? I guess I saved a man’s life, mother. That is who your son has become.

  The work aloft is very hard to do. The topsails and courses are the largest sails on the ship and made of thick, heavy canvas. These sails weigh hundreds and hundreds of pounds dry. Our sails are soaked from rain, snow, and ice. They are also very stiff. That’s why 12 of us had to go aloft. My hands are now calloused and no longer look like a Boston gentleman’s hands. There’s dirt under my fingernails. I’ve not washed for days now. No one has.

  It took more than a half hour to reef the lower fore topsail. We were exhausted; we could not have our supper on time. We are the only men there are to do the reefing work. There’s no one else. We had two more topsails to reef, and the fore and main courses, nearly three hours more work. Where does our strength and endurance come from?

  When finished, we had more work to do on deck. We braced the sails and the ship resumed sailing south by southwest. I heard Mr. Carver bellow out my name above the roar of the wind and sea. I reported to him on the quarterdeck. He said, “Say nothing to Elder about freezing up. Let him keep his pride. Do you understand me?” Mr. Carver’s face was fearsome. Then, suddenly, a smile broke out on his face and he punched my shoulder briskly. “Well done, son. Well done, indeed.”

  My body feels leaden. My joints and back ache without relief. The veins on my arms now rise clearly above skin. For the first time in my life I like the person I’ve become. I’m happy. I h
ope you and father are happy now that I am away.

  I am now and always will be your loving son.

  Nicholas Priest

  Thirty-Eight

  Around Cape Horn

  “Wear ship!”

  —Joseph Conrad

  Saturday, July 27, 1872

  Lat 57˚00΄00˝S, Long 73˚35΄00˝W

  At two p.m. Friday, Providence found herself in an angry gale, forcing her weary crew aloft to reef the topsails. Both watches remained on deck until eight p.m., when the gale and wind moderated and the ship was once again in a cold calm with fifteen-foot seas running. By midnight the sails hung lifeless from their yards and the ship was filled with the sterile groans and cracks of her yards and rigging working under the strain of nothing but their own weight. The downeaster moved only where the Cape Horn current and seas pushed her. Griffin used every wisp, every breath to keep her southing, piling on sail, furling sail, reefing, and then taking the reefs out, bracing to the wind, and flattening the weather bowlines.

  The men below lay on their straw mattresses in damp blankets and wet wool work clothes, nursing the salt sores on their hands. These sores had opened up wounds on the palms of their hands and in the cracks below the joints of their fingers. The men’s fingers bled when worked and, at their worst, showed bone beneath their knuckles. They slept fully clothed, knowing they could be called upon at a moment’s notice to work, breaking into their allotted four hours of rest. Most were too exhausted to remove their clothing. The stench of sweat, wet oilcloth, wet wool, and wet men was as bad as that of cattle shut up for long periods in a closed barn.

  The men were given little relief from their pain by sleep, as a ship becalmed moves uneasily to every whim of the waves striking its hull, a movement opposite to the rhythm of having way on; and besides, the seas were high and long. All knew they were not making any further distance westward, the calm once again delaying progress and holding the ship in the Drake Passage. All who had rounded Cape Horn from east to west knew that the delay, the struggle to move westward, could take days more, weeks more, or even months more, and still end in failure.

  It was six a.m. now, and it was breath-sucking cold; the calm had ended and the wind came on mild from the south, clearing the overcast from the morning sky. Henry Lennon sent for his captain and the first mate. The moon was crisply visible in the sky, and so was the horizon.

  Isaac Griffin was delighted. He obtained good sextant observations of the moon at last. From these sights, he calculated his position, calculated lunars to check his trusted Negus chronometers, and concluded that he was not only west of Cape Horn, but into the Pacific. Cape Horn had been rounded! He showed his calculations to Peleg Carver, who compared them to his own. Both men smiled at the realization they were in agreement—no further southing was needed! Both men in turn showed their calculations to the second mate, barely containing their joy. They had found the right conditions to move them away from the Antarctic ice northward, up the west coast of South America.

  Griffin spoke to his officers: “We’ve had five to fifteen hours of calm every day since we reached the Falkland Islands. We lived in darkness without sun or moon. But all we needed was a fair wind and we could steer north, and we have that wind now. Mr. Lennon, wear ship.”

  It was forty-three minutes past six in the morning when the command to wear was given.

  ***

  Sam Duder beamed. “Can you feel it, Priest, Smallbridge? Even you ought to be smiling, John Stedwin! He’s gonna wear ship! We’re going north. You boys have earned your ink. We’re round Cape Stiff!”

  ***

  Had Griffin just given Henry Lennon one hundred dollars, more than twice a month’s pay, the money could not have brought the joy of knowing his captain trusted him to execute a wear. It meant his captain had confidence in his ability to be a first mate and his promotion would be forthcoming when the ship finally reached Boston. Lennon, an experienced second mate, knew the captain took her out and the first mate brought her in, knew that captains almost always directed course changes requiring tacks and wears. Lennon gave the order to wear ship and to bring the ship to NNW, to steer up the West Coast of South America and toward Providence’s destination, San Francisco.

  ***

  The boatswain, Eoghan Gabriel, knew what he was doing. Duder and Stedwin, the two senior seamen of the starboard watch, also knew their trade and immediately set themselves and the other hands to taking the lee braces off their pins, flaking them out on the deck in preparation for hauling. The other watch began dousing the spanker and preparing a preventer for the new tack. The apprentices were sent aloft with the staysails, shifting their sheets and preparing the sails for setting. This was no man-o’-war; there were no shrill boatswain calls, no repeated orders, no crowds of men scurrying to their stations, because this ship was a downeaster manned by twenty-eight now deep water sailors and three seasoned officers.

  Despite their pain, the men before the mast moved quickly in the bitter cold and with the efficiency of determined men.

  “Smartly, boys, smartly. Step lively, now, before we lose our wind! This is what we’ve waited for,” Eoghan Gabriel encouraged them on because he too was happy, and the men gained excitement from his exhortations and the grin on his face.

  The boatswain moved from mast to mast, progressing from aft to forward, checking each mast and seeing that the men and gear were prepared to respond to the next command. When satisfied with the readiness of each line to be used, and seeing the men properly stationed, he turned and shouted, “Ready to wear, Mr. Lennon.” All the men turned to Lennon and watched and waited to hear his command. Lennon bellowed, “Stand by to wear ship. Hard a starboard! Brace main and mizzen yards to the wind!”

  Duder bellowed out the shantey “Eliza Lee” as the men hauled sail, “and the bulgine ran free.”

  By bracing the main and mizzen yards parallel to the wind, the men emptied the sails on those masts of their wind, leaving the wind to fill only on the foremast’s sails and jibs. The foremast sails and jibs now pushed the bow as it fell off the wind and started the wear. As the wear continued, each mast was progressively braced to the wind in order to let its sails fill and continue the wear. As the wear neared completion, the jibs were progressively shifted to the opposite tack. At the completion of the wear, all yards were braced sharp to the wind, the spanker shifted and raised, while the ship proceeded to the northwest.

  Wearing ship required a high degree of seamanship on the part of the watch officer who had the deck, and the boatswain to prevent the sails from backing, and to ease the burden of the men as they hauled against the force of the wind. If the wear was not executed with great skill by the conning officer, the boatswain, and the helmsman, the wear could take hours to complete and occupy a great amount of sea space. This was sure to displease the ship’s captain—indeed, any ship’s captain.

  Isaac Griffin had watched the full hour involved in wearing ship without speaking a single word or so much as furrowing his brow, choking off all display of emotion, fully realizing the pressure his presence placed on the second mate. Lennon performed as well as anyone could expect of a ship’s master, let alone a second mate. Lennon had been careful to use the helm to ease the men’s work, and his timing with the wind bordered on perfection. Eoghan Gabriel was exceptional also.

  When yards are braced, the higher, lighter yards such as the topgallant tend to get ahead of the lower yards, and he was alert to avoiding this, thus saving the men the additional work of pulling against the wind to correct them. Griffin also saw that his men performed with a heart and with minimal direction from the second mate and boatswain. He also saw occasional traces of blood on the braces from the men’s salt-sore hands. They had given him and their ship everything expected of square-rigged seamen. Neither the men nor their officers expected anything less or—if need be—would accept anything less.

  Nineteen crewmen, four day-men, four apprentices, and the second mate, all exhausted, now sitting huddl
ed against the protection of the weather bulwark, had brought the stern of Providence through the eye of the wind. The crew forced leaden arms and legs to set courses and topsails, topgallants, and royals. Providence was now sailing NNW in fourteen knots of wind under all common sail. The starboard watch was relieved, and both watches turned to with routine ship’s work and approached the day as bloodied, but unbroken and unconquered men. They ignored their hands, the salt-sores, and their bodies, the boils, and their staggering lack of sleep, and fueled an appetite for their daily rations. Snow and ice were removed, the running rigging checked and overhauled where needed, and chafing gear put in place or moved as required. Hot coffee and a cold hardtack breakfast had been served late because of the wear.

  Isaac Griffin once again looked forward to writing to Kayleigh, telling her that they were sailing north, away from the bottom of the world and toward San Francisco. There was joy to share. He actually could tell her that a bonus from the Central Pacific was still possible. He could tell her that he, his officers, his crew, and his ship were soon to be safe from the terrible Southern Ocean. He was in such a good mood, he gave the order—yes, that order seldom heard aboard a Yankee sailing ship—“Mr. Lennon, tell the hands we’ll splice the main brace at noon.”

  ***

  O, whiskey is the life of man,

  Whiskey, Johnny!

  I drink whiskey when I can

  Whiskey for my Johnny!

  Whiskey from an old tin can,

  Whiskey, Johnny!

  I’ll drink whiskey when I can.

  Whiskey for my Johnny!

  I drink it hot, I drink it cold,

  Whiskey, Johnny!

  I drink it new, I drink it old.

  Whiskey for my Johnny!

  Whiskey makes me feel so sad,