THE HANGTOWN TRILOGY, OBIE, Episode twenty-six

 

THE HANGTOWN TRILOGY

OBIE

Episode twenty-six

DOUBLING THE HORN

A shore craft waited at the pier, and once we’d loaded our gear aboard, several seamen manned the oars and we prepared to shove off. Desperate to make a good first impression on Mr. Hopkins, I loosed the moorings, gave the prow a good shove, lost my balance and went headlong off the dock into a briny pool of tidal foam and seaweed. So much for first impressions! Mr. Hopkins helped me into the boat, and I stood demoralized and dripping as we made our way to the ship.

Lidge and I marveled as we approached the clipper. Her sails were white as snow, and her rigging fairly beamed! The whole ship seemed to glow in the setting sun. Several mates assisted Uncle Mark aboard. He apprised them of the events ashore and the demise of the late captain, and then informed them that the replacement captain should be onboard within the hour. “Oh, by the way,” he added, “my two nephews have joined us, and they’ll stay in my cabin with me.” “Very well Sir,” replied the first mate, “I’ll arrange for bedding and notify the cook.” This just got better and better, and Lidge and I just couldn’t believe our luck!

The clipper ship Pacific is as nice a craft as you’d ever want to see. If we’d had our pick of the whole darned fleet, we couldn’t have chosen a finer craft than this. The crew was comprised of professional seamen, all stalwart as they come. They’d made the sea their life and this ship their home. We couldn’t have been in better hands if we’d handpicked them everyone ourselves. We’d face the horn with the best darn crew afloat.

This ship was considerably larger than our last old scow. There were probably a hundred passengers onboard, plus crew. Most, like before, were members of joint-stock companies. Uncle Mark on the other hand was evidently a man of some means. His private cabin was on the upper deck, about mid ship on the starboard side. It was nicely furnished and undoubtedly set him back a bundle. Arriving at our benefactor’s cabin, we’d no more than entered the cozy compartment before two cots were promptly brought in and outfitted, and I was provided a towel. This beat peeling taters all to heck!

Uncle Mark offered us each a seat and suggested we have a talk. “First,” he says, “I’ll tell you about myself.” He proceeded to fill us in briefly, concerning his situation back east, and a little more in regard to his plans out west. He was clearly a man of integrity, and had left behind a lucrative position back home. His family owned a business, and he’d established himself quite well, but he’d been bitten by the gold bug just like us. Unlike us, his maturity and experience had tempered his dreams of gold. He’d taken precautions and established some alternate plans. If the gold didn’t happen, he’d fall back on plans B & C.

“There’ll be some minimal costs,” he says, “for bringing you boys aboard. This trip’s not cheap, and they’re not going to feed you for free. I’ll cover the costs for now,” he says, “and I’ll do it without reserve, but I expect you two to toe the line and prove worthy of my trust. Don’t give me a reason to regret this charitable act. The California coast is months away, and there’s still Cape Horn to round, then after Valparaiso, 6000 hard miles at sea. That’s a whole lot of time together,” he says, “and this cabins not very big. In the months ahead we’ll either bond or bust. So, I’m counting on the two of you,” he says, “to pull your weight and more. We’ll reach San Francisco, and then we’ll go from there.” Well, I can’t speak for Lidge of course, but if he’s wanting to bond with me, I’d have to say he’s off to a mighty fine start.

Following our discussion, the three of us settled into our cabin, and then Uncle Mark took us on an extensive tour of the ship. She’s a mighty impressive vessel, and that’s a fact! Ending up here was a blessing and a half. Being beaten, robbed, and marooned in Rio, may well prove to be the most fortuitous event of my whole colorful career.

Around dusk, the captain came aboard and immediately assembled the passengers and crew. This guy didn’t look very nautical to me. He was about five foot seven, probably weighed in at 155, and judging from his appearance, I’d have guessed him to be an attorney, or a dentist maybe, or some other variety of white-collar criminal, but he bore no resemblance to my vision of a sea captain. He was probably only in his early forties, but he evidently knew his stuff, and despite my first impression, this guy turned out to be a first-rate captain. He hadn’t kissed the blarney stone like Lidge, but he surely loved to talk. He was articulate and soft spoken, and you could take for gospel every word he said. Barring complications, he anticipated our arrival at Valparaiso to take place around the end of June.

The passage south was pleasant and uneventful. On our approach to Cape Horn, we were treated to all variety of astronomical sightings and colorful atmospheric phenomenon. We saw Magellan Clouds, the southern lights, and on numerous nights we saw the Southern Cross. Our approach to the dreaded Cape was deceptively peaceful. The passage between Rio and Valparaiso would prove to be the most perilous and grueling of the entire fourteen-thousand-mile voyage.

Our ship proceeded at a pretty good clip until the twenty-fourth day of May. Uncle Mark spent considerable time with several of his acquaintances. They met most afternoons for tea, and on many evenings, they played cards into the wee hours of the morning. Uncle Mark was a good Christian gentleman. He abstained from foul language, hard liquor, and most red meat. He had one vice though, most everybody does. Uncle Mark’s vice was expensive, hand rolled cigars. He believed in moderation and he practiced what he preached, but he burned up at least one good cigar each day. Rio’s leading export was a pretty good cigar, and Uncle Mark picked up a case before we left.

As we approached the southernmost tip of Patagonia, the temperatures would drop dramatically, weather conditions deteriorate, and dangerous storms reacquaint us with our maker. Passing between the Falkland Islands to the east, and Tierra del Fuego to the west, we would enter Drake Passage and sail westward against powerful crosscurrents between the dreaded Cape Horn and the frozen wastes of Antarctica herself. The horrific storms off Cape Horn were infamous around the world, as the most ruthless gales to ever assault the sea! The notorious, iceberg plagued channel had sucked many a vessel into a watery grave, with no man left alive to tell the tale. Rain, sleet, and snow fell incessantly, temperatures plummeted, powerful crosscurrents impeded progress, and the mountainous waves and merciless winds claimed countless ships with every man aboard.

On May 24th, West Falkland Island came into view to our southeast. The ship set a course that took us past the west edge of the island, and then southeast in order to keep a safe distance from the rocky outcroppings of the archipelago of Tierra del Fuego.

The sky darkened ominously as the noon hour approached, and as we turned westward into Drake Passage, a virtual wall of rapidly building clouds appeared on the horizon, thunder boomed threateningly, lightning flashed, and brutal winds whipped the waves into lather. The sea became black as coal, and the skies above us boiled like a witch’s cauldron.

A cruel wind from the northeast necessitated bringing down the canvas, and as the crew battened down the hatches, they began to lash themselves down as well. Within moments the squall line moved in and all heck broke loose! The crew brought down the mainsail; the temperature dropped to around 30 degrees Fahrenheit, and the gale force winds howled like poltergeists through the abandoned rigging of the ship.

Even with most of the canvas down, the pounding nor’easter continued driving our vessel southward into the frigid waters of the unforgiving Antarctic. The best we could hope for was that the determined efforts of our gallant crew might convert the contrary force into a slightly more westerly course. Achieving this tentative compromise would mean the difference between arriving at last in the sunny South Pacific, or being driven southward toward certain death in the ice plagued waters of Antarctica’s brutal coast.

Lightning flashed as the two fronts collided, it rained like the dickens, and then began to sleet. Ice formed in the rigging, covering the decks and trailing in sheets and icicles from the masts. Within 20 minutes the swells grew to the size of mountains, but the clipper took each mountainous swell in stride. Pausing at the crest of each, she’d rush headlong down its backside, and then groan and shudder as she plowed into the next. When we’d reach the low point between the swells, the crests would rise and build, till they towered like snowcapped mountains above our masts. The larger swells periodically buried the entire forward part of the vessel, rushing in through the bow ports and pouring into the deepest bowels of the ship.

The three of us watched spellbound from the portholes of our cabin, while the ship tossed and rolled until it was nearly impossible to stand. Much of our gear had been stowed on the bunk, or underneath our cots. Now it slid back and forth on the floor with each new swell. Waves crashed down on the deck outside our cabin, until water began seeping in beneath our door. We jammed towels against the threshold to keep out the water, and we doused our lamp for fear it might jar loose and start a fire. Never in my life have I had such a sense of terror and impending doom. I sat in the corner on the wet floor with my back against the wall and my feet braced defiantly against the bulwarks, resigned to disaster and prepared to meet the Lord. “Hold tight to your faith”, Dad always says, “Through the darkest hour our brightest hope is faith; faith burns most brightly when all other hopes are spent.”

Precipitation ranged from torrential rain, to blizzards of blinding snow, and that nor’easter raged while those seamen held their posts. Thus, we knelt in our cabin absorbed in prayer while Antarctica’s fit continued, without a break till noon of the following day.

Around two o’clock on the afternoon of May 25th, the worst of the storm was spent. The crew cleaned up the carnage, and Lidge and I decided to venture out. Uncle Mark went to check on his comrades, and Lidge and I set out for the map room to check on our progress. The mate was busy updating the chart as we approached; he engaged us in chat, and we learned a wealth of news. Evidently our vessel was coming up rapidly on mid channel when the storm began. Between the southern tip of South America, and the northernmost reaches of Antarctica, is a body of water about seven hundred miles across. Somewhere in this body of 29-degree water, the frigid waters of the Antarctic regions collide with the tropical currents flowing from the north. At this point of Antarctic convergence, temperatures clash and nature mirrors hell.

Fortunately for us, that nor’easter hadn’t clipped us until we were safely into the channel, away from the archipelago with it rocky shoals and jagged hidden reefs. If we’d been blown southwestward an hour earlier, we’d have been smashed to pieces along that treacherous shore. Some folks would consider this outcome predestined; I’m not much of a believer in fate myself. A good Christian would credit divine intervention: the intervening hand of almighty God. A gambling man would simply call it luck. I tend to believe it was probably a little of each.

Some would say this ship had saved our bacon! According to the mate here, the East Indiamen and galleys of old could safely sail at around four or five nautical miles per hour, some newer ships can safely sail at six. This clipper was built around 1841. At a length of two hundred and fifty feet, and a weight of around thirty tons, she was built to race the wind, and it’s safe to say she raced the wind last night. Her masts and prow are a new design, and she has canvas where other ships just have wind. Folks these days believe that time is money, and the clipper ships were purely built for speed. Their design was produced specifically to clip off time, thus, the clipper. That need for speed has surely saved our lives. The Pacific had sailed along that front for almost four hundred miles, and what’s more, she’d done it at speeds up to twenty knots. Where most old ships would have floundered and gone down to Davy Jones, the clipper Pacific had sailed us around the Horn.

To be continued?

By Shannon Thomas Casebeer

Copyright © FEBRUARY 14th, 2009