Part 2 (1/2)
I put the spokes down harder and harder. She never budged from the trough. (The trough, gentle reader, is the most dangerous position all in which to lay a vessel.) I put the wheel hard down, and still the _Snark_ rolled in the trough. Eight points was the nearest I could get her to the wind. I had Roscoe and Bert come in on the main-sheet. The _Snark_ rolled on in the trough, now putting her rail under on one side and now under on the other side.
Again the inconceivable and monstrous was showing its grizzly head. It was grotesque, impossible. I refused to believe it. Under double-reefed mainsail and single-reefed staysail the _Snark_ refused to heave to. We flattened the mainsail down. It did not alter the _Snark's_ course a tenth of a degree. We slacked the mainsail off with no more result. We set a storm trysail on the mizzen, and took in the mainsail. No change.
The _Snark_ roiled on in the trough. That beautiful bow of hers refused to come up and face the wind.
Next we took in the reefed staysail. Thus, the only bit of canvas left on her was the storm trysail on the mizzen. If anything would bring her bow up to the wind, that would. Maybe you won't believe me when I say it failed, but I do say it failed. And I say it failed because I saw it fail, and not because I believe it failed. I don't believe it did fail.
It is unbelievable, and I am not telling you what I believe; I am telling you what I saw.
Now, gentle reader, what would you do if you were on a small boat, rolling in the trough of the sea, a trysail on that small boat's stern that was unable to swing the bow up into the wind? Get out the sea-anchor. It's just what we did. We had a patent one, made to order and warranted not to dive. Imagine a hoop of steel that serves to keep open the mouth of a large, conical, canvas bag, and you have a sea-anchor. Well, we made a line fast to the sea-anchor and to the bow of the _Snark_, and then dropped the sea-anchor overboard. It promptly dived. We had a tripping line on it, so we tripped the sea-anchor and hauled it in. We attached a big timber as a float, and dropped the sea-anchor over again. This time it floated. The line to the bow grew taut. The trysail on the mizzen tended to swing the bow into the wind, but, in spite of this tendency, the _Snark_ calmly took that sea-anchor in her teeth, and went on ahead, dragging it after her, still in the trough of the sea. And there you are. We even took in the trysail, hoisted the full mizzen in its place, and hauled the full mizzen down flat, and the _Snark_ wallowed in the trough and dragged the sea-anchor behind her. Don't believe me. I don't believe it myself. I am merely telling you what I saw.
Now I leave it to you. Who ever heard of a sailing-boat that wouldn't heave to?-that wouldn't heave to with a sea-anchor to help it? Out of my brief experience with boats I know I never did. And I stood on deck and looked on the naked face of the inconceivable and monstrous-the _Snark_ that wouldn't heave to. A stormy night with broken moonlight had come on. There was a splash of wet in the air, and up to windward there was a promise of rain-squalls; and then there was the trough of the sea, cold and cruel in the moonlight, in which the _Snark_ complacently rolled.
And then we took in the sea-anchor and the mizzen, hoisted the reefed staysail, ran the _Snark_ off before it, and went below-not to the hot meal that should have awaited us, but to skate across the slush and slime on the cabin floor, where cook and cabin-boy lay like dead men in their bunks, and to lie down in our own bunks, with our clothes on ready for a call, and to listen to the bilge-water spouting knee-high on the galley floor.
In the Bohemian Club of San Francisco there are some crack sailors. I know, because I heard them pa.s.s judgment on the _Snark_ during the process of her building. They found only one vital thing the matter with her, and on this they were all agreed, namely, that she could not run.
She was all right in every particular, they said, except that I'd never be able to run her before it in a stiff wind and sea. ”Her lines,” they explained enigmatically, ”it is the fault of her lines. She simply cannot be made to run, that is all.” Well, I wish I'd only had those crack sailors of the Bohemian Club on board the _Snark_ the other night for them to see for themselves their one, vital, unanimous judgment absolutely reversed. Run? It is the one thing the _Snark_ does to perfection. Run? She ran with a sea-anchor fast for'ard and a full mizzen flattened down aft. Run? At the present moment, as I write this, we are bowling along before it, at a six-knot clip, in the north-east trades. Quite a tidy bit of sea is running. There is n.o.body at the wheel, the wheel is not even lashed and is set over a half-spoke weather helm. To be precise, the wind is north-east; the _Snark's_ mizzen is furled, her mainsail is over to starboard, her head-sheets are hauled flat: and the _Snark's_ course is south-south-west. And yet there are men who have sailed the seas for forty years and who hold that no boat can run before it without being steered. They'll call me a liar when they read this; it's what they called Captain Sloc.u.m when he said the same of his _Spray_.
As regards the future of the _Snark_ I'm all at sea. I don't know. If I had the money or the credit, I'd build another _Snark_ that _would_ heave to. But I am at the end of my resources. I've got to put up with the present _Snark_ or quit-and I can't quit. So I guess I'll have to try to get along with heaving the _Snark_ to stern first. I am waiting for the next gale to see how it will work. I think it can be done. It all depends on how her stern takes the seas. And who knows but that some wild morning on the China Sea, some gray-beard skipper will stare, rub his incredulous eyes and stare again, at the spectacle of a weird, small craft very much like the _Snark_, hove to stern-first and riding out the gale?
P.S. On my return to California after the voyage, I learned that the _Snark_ was forty-three feet on the water-line instead of forty-five.
This was due to the fact that the builder was not on speaking terms with the tape-line or two-foot rule.
CHAPTER III ADVENTURE
NO, adventure is not dead, and in spite of the steam engine and of Thomas Cook & Son. When the announcement of the contemplated voyage of the _Snark_ was made, young men of ”roving disposition” proved to be legion, and young women as well-to say nothing of the elderly men and women who volunteered for the voyage. Why, among my personal friends there were at least half a dozen who regretted their recent or imminent marriages; and there was one marriage I know of that almost failed to come off because of the _Snark_.
Every mail to me was burdened with the letters of applicants who were suffocating in the ”man-stifled towns,” and it soon dawned upon me that a twentieth century Ulysses required a corps of stenographers to clear his correspondence before setting sail. No, adventure is certainly not dead-not while one receives letters that begin:
”There is no doubt that when you read this soul-plea from a female stranger in New York City,” etc.; and wherein one learns, a little farther on, that this female stranger weighs only ninety pounds, wants to be cabin-boy, and ”yearns to see the countries of the world.”
The possession of a ”pa.s.sionate fondness for geography,” was the way one applicant expressed the wander-l.u.s.t that was in him; while another wrote, ”I am cursed with an eternal yearning to be always on the move, consequently this letter to you.” But best of all was the fellow who said he wanted to come because his feet itched.
There were a few who wrote anonymously, suggesting names of friends and giving said friends' qualifications; but to me there was a hint of something sinister in such proceedings, and I went no further in the matter.
With two or three exceptions, all the hundreds that volunteered for my crew were very much in earnest. Many of them sent their photographs.
Ninety per cent. offered to work in any capacity, and ninety-nine per cent. offered to work without salary. ”Contemplating your voyage on the _Snark_,” said one, ”and notwithstanding its attendant dangers, to accompany you (in any capacity whatever) would be the climax of my ambitions.” Which reminds me of the young fellow who was ”seventeen years old and ambicious,” and who, at the end of his letter, earnestly requested ”but please do not let this git into the papers or magazines.”
Quite different was the one who said, ”I would be willing to work like h.e.l.l and not demand pay.” Almost all of them wanted me to telegraph, at their expense, my acceptance of their services; and quite a number offered to put up a bond to guarantee their appearance on sailing date.
Some were rather vague in their own minds concerning the work to be done on the _Snark_; as, for instance, the one who wrote: ”I am taking the liberty of writing you this note to find out if there would be any possibility of my going with you as one of the crew of your boat to make sketches and ill.u.s.trations.” Several, unaware of the needful work on a small craft like the _Snark_, offered to serve, as one of them phrased it, ”as a.s.sistant in filing materials collected for books and novels.”
That's what one gets for being prolific.
”Let me give my qualifications for the job,” wrote one. ”I am an orphan living with my uncle, who is a hot revolutionary socialist and who says a man without the red blood of adventure is an animated dish-rag.” Said another: ”I can swim some, though I don't know any of the new strokes.
But what is more important than strokes, the water is a friend of mine.”
”If I was put alone in a sail-boat, I could get her anywhere I wanted to go,” was the qualification of a third-and a better qualification than the one that follows, ”I have also watched the fish-boats unload.” But possibly the prize should go to this one, who very subtly conveys his deep knowledge of the world and life by saying: ”My age, in years, is twenty-two.”
Then there were the simple straight-out, homely, and unadorned letters of young boys, lacking in the felicities of expression, it is true, but desiring greatly to make the voyage. These were the hardest of all to decline, and each time I declined one it seemed as if I had struck Youth a slap in the face. They were so earnest, these boys, they wanted so much to go. ”I am sixteen but large for my age,” said one; and another, ”Seventeen but large and healthy.” ”I am as strong at least as the average boy of my size,” said an evident weakling. ”Not afraid of any kind of work,” was what many said, while one in particular, to lure me no doubt by inexpensiveness, wrote: ”I can pay my way to the Pacific coast, so that part would probably be acceptable to you.” ”Going around the world is _the one thing_ I want to do,” said one, and it seemed to be the one thing that a few hundred wanted to do. ”I have no one who cares whether I go or not,” was the pathetic note sounded by another. One had sent his photograph, and speaking of it, said, ”I'm a homely-looking sort of a chap, but looks don't always count.” And I am confident that the lad who wrote the following would have turned out all right: ”My age is 19 years, but I am rather small and consequently won't take up much room, but I'm tough as the devil.” And there was one thirteen-year-old applicant that Charmian and I fell in love with, and it nearly broke our hearts to refuse him.