Shotgun began another conversation. “The Old Man, he’s as mean as a shark. Food’s not all Slushy’s fault. Owners, they’re all the same. McRafferty owns this ship. Know what you’re in for?”
“You tell me.”
“Okay. You’re in for filthy rotten food and bloody little water to drink or wash in. The afterguard’ll have what fresh vegetables there are, and they won’t last long. We’ll not re-provision before Iquique and by that time the water’ll be foul, unless we catch any rainwater on deck.”
Halfhyde nodded non-committally. He was not going to admit to the fact that McRafferty had told him of his ownership; that would indicate too great a familiarity between himself and the Master and he would suffer for it, besides which McRafferty had wanted nothing of that sort to be known in the fo’c’sle. But that McRafferty was mean was not news either; in the Bear’s Paw McRafferty had said that a shipmaster who was also his own owner could not afford high living. Money was not to be spent lavishly; owners were in the business to make a profit, which was not the case in the Navy, where the Queen was lavish enough and could afford to be. Halfhyde had remarked that the men must be kept happy and that the best way for that was a full stomach. McRafferty’s answer had been short: their stomachs were quite full enough. And a mean Irishman, especially over drink as Halfhyde also remembered from the Bear’s Paw, was something of a rarity. Shotgun went on to say that the Old Man was mean with his daughter also, and that she needed to kick over the traces for her own good. He came the master and owner over her as much as over the hands and never allowed her any freedom. Last voyage, Shotgun said, the old bastard had taken his revolver to Patience and threatened to shoot him if he went too near the girl.
LATE THE following afternoon the Aysgarth Falls had passed the Tuskar Rocks and had altered course to starboard towards the Fastnet whence she would take her final departure from the United Kingdom to head down through the South Atlantic for the passage of the Horn. Bullock was on watch on the poop; and Captain McRafferty was pacing the deck and looking anxiously from time to time at the glass: he had noted a fall in the barometric pressure, a slow but steady drop that confirmed the heavy weather on their track ahead that his seaman’s eye had noted already in the cloud formation.
“I don’t like it, Mr Bullock,” he said. “Pass the word for all hands.”
Bullock raised a shout for the bosun, and the watch below was turned out, grumbling, to prepare the Aysgarth Falls for dirty weather. Below decks, everything movable was doubly secured against the heave of wind and water. On the deck itself, all lashings were carefully examined and where necessary double-banked. Bullock, accompanied by the bosun, opened up the tween-deck hatches and carried out such inspection of the cargo and the shifting-boards as was possible. Aloft, the gear was overhauled for good measure—foot-ropes, ratlines, one or two new buntlines and leechlines were rove. From the main yard, where he had been sent by the First Mate, Halfhyde looked down on the work proceeding on deck: all skylights were being battened down and secured with tarpaulins, and all inessential deckhouse doors were being caulked up to prevent any inrush of water if they should ship a heavy sea. Men stood by the halliards and braces as McRafferty, from the poop, ordered the royal yards to be sent down and the flying jib unbent. The Captain, Halfhyde saw, was watching the sails closely, and spoke now and again to the man at the wheel, occasionally lending a hand himself to bring the ship quickly to the shifts of wind, which was already beginning to become oddly erratic and in fact had decreased if anything in strength. When the blow came and the preparations on deck had been completed, an extra hand would be sent to the wheel to help hold it steady. Looking ahead in the fading light Halfhyde found the Atlantic flat but somehow threatening, like a bottomless, evil pool. He had seldom seen the sea like this in home waters. There was a bad sign insofar as the wind seemed to have gone almost altogether now; there was a slatting sound as limp canvas flapped back against the masts and yards, and a rattle of blocks as an occasional light gust shook through the ropes. The feeling of threat increased, and Halfhyde saw the tension in the faces of the men alongside him on the yard as, to McRafferty’s orders, the storm mainsail was sent up.
“The Old Man expects a real blow,” one of them said. “It won’t be just playing about, not tonight.” He looked aside at Halfhyde. “Best watch it. There’s a golden rule aboard the windjammers: one hand for the ship and one for yourself.”
Halfhyde smiled. “Thank you for the warning,” he said. “It’s not my first time aloft, however, and I don’t expect to die just yet!”
The last of the daylight was going now. Ahead, on the starboard bow, a long low line of black cloud had formed and above this, the colour seeming to rise out of it, the sky was green-shot and dangerous. As Halfhyde looked towards this great bank of cloud, he saw a curious transformation of the sea’s surface, a sort of ruffling movement that spread from ahead with extreme rapidity and came down towards the Aysgarth Falls. As Halfhyde looked aft in expectation of orders from
