THE FLAT GREEN ISLAND near by to starboard was Nuku Hiva. Back on the starboard quarter was the graying dome of Ua Huka and distantly visible on the port beam was Ua Pou. Nuku Hiva is the main island and port of entry for the French-governed Marquesas Islands. I stood about two miles south of Sail Rock on her southeast point. The wind- and sea-laved rock was white with the foam of relentless rollers advancing before the seasonal trades. Behind it, and blending with it, was Cape Martin.
On Nuka Hiva’s southern shore you find three excellent harbors, Comptroller Bay, Taio Hae Bay, and Tai Oa Bay. I idled along the coast at a wistful distance and peered into each inviting anchorage. In my lap lay spread the chart of the island. I explored each part I passed. I was nearly tempted to steer into one of them.
Taio Hae from the sea is dark green, seamed with cool valleys and topped by a benevolent cloud, a valley as soothing as fresh linen. But I wasn’t on a sightseeing trip, I had no visa, and I had no clearance papers for the port. My exchequer was down to twenty dollars, and I had no way of knowing, if I did go in, if I had enough money to get out.
But most important of all, I couldn’t afford the time. Hurricane weather would be setting in on the Tasman Sea in less than six weeks, and I had to be in Sydney before then. It meant hard sailing: there were more than 4000 miles of sea yet to cross. Furthermore, Pagan was in need of nothing. Food I had aplenty and there was three months’ water supply on board.
Morale of passengers, crew, and escort was high, especially so since I was nearing 145° west longitude, the halfway mark to Sydney. Flotsam and Jetsam were thriving on the life. Stowaway, though I seldom saw him, was in fine fettle. Old Death and his mob, despite the fact that they had lost three of their number on the traverse, didn’t appear to be affected by 3000 miles of day and night swimming at five knots. The whole gang was with me to a man: “Sail on,” they said. So I glided along the southern extremity of the famous island that has figured so strongly in romantic literature and the lives of adventurous men in the South Seas.
Later the same day I wished I had gone into one of the quiet embayments. The mainsail halyard suddenly parted, chafed through at the peak block, and I found myself with the nastiest repair job known to the seaman, which is to say, scaling the mast to tie a splice into the becket. Throughout the voyage I had dreaded the onset of such a task. To this end I had replaced all halyards before leaving Galápagos, hoping they would last out the voyage to Sydney. The hard usage of the trades had worn the weak sisal rope through where it rode in the block.
Such a repair on the smooth waters of a basin is one thing, but in the unceasing seaway of the southeast trades it is decidedly another.
I got no farther than the hounds before I realized that what I was doing was impossible in the nude. I slid back down the swaying pole, minus a few minor chunks of flesh and smarting where I had met the mast and shrouds. I donned trousers and shirt and commenced the exhausting climb again.
This time I got well into the rigging before I encountered serious difficulties. Hanging on was a superenergetic job. I was puffing before I reached the first set of hounds. I had both legs and one arm locked tightly about the mast. With my free hand I cut away the old halyard at the becket, and barely managed to reeve the new line into the block, when I became aware that no matter how desperately I clung, I was being torn from my grip. I pulled the line through the sheave. My strength, in the maximum effort demanded to clutch the lurching spar, was deserting fast. I could hang on, I knew, only a few seconds at most. My holds were slipping, I was going.
I expected I would fall from the swinging spar and crash on the deck. The next land down wind was hundreds of miles.
It would be impossible in that sea to pass the line through the main peak block and splice it then to the becket on the topmast block. I could only hope to get safely out of the mess I had got myself into.
I made a movement to glide to deck thirty-five feet below. My leg unwound from its hold and was flung sharply away from the mast. I was thrown out of balance. My other leg followed. I was tossed against the shroud and against the mast. I could neither hold on nor work my way down without plummeting to the deck.
Below me Pagan looked like a canoe. Her headsails were bellied to the wind. Each roller that passed under her counter pitched her steeply and rolled her to the rail. Up here I was looking down on first one side of Pagan’s decks and then the other.
Unable to hold longer, I cast loose and kicked away as best I could. I fell as little boys fall from trees: completely out of control, legs kicking, arms flying. But I landed on the hard water—how it happened I don’t know. Until the moment I sucked water into my lungs, I thought I had struck the rail.
I clambered on deck and lay atop the deckhouse gasping for breath.
It was evident I couldn’t splice the halyard into the becket. I gave up the use of a peak block altogether and used the single purchase with one block. When I was rested, I hooked the sail on and pulled it up. It was harder to handle but it worked. Pagan was under full sail and showing her heels to the Marquesas.
Noon had gone. The islands were still in sight. I was resting and smarting from my labors on the mast. Pagan was doing her work nicely; she was shaping slightly south of west. The afternoon was passing like any other, except that I was enervated from the morning’s exertions. I was sitting in the cockpit with the kittens purring their pleasant way, asleep in my lap. Slightly abaft the beam and about a hundred yards out the sea surface rippled, then it rippled again.
I stood up and watched, expecting to see a school of porpoise. The splashes and eddies drew near. Then, breaking water near by, and gliding smoothly beneath the keel, came a giant devilfish. He approached Pagan as though he hadn’t seen her, and when he passed, he turned and slipped deliberately back, coming close enough to touch the planking, eying me with black protruding eyes. His head was the end part of a slightly humped and heavy body. His mouth was a black hole and either side of it were short armlike growths that he used, I suppose, to cram his victims into his black maw. The wide meaty wings moved with rippling motions, thrusting the tons of his weight along by the merest movements. Trailing behind him, like a life line, was a short thin tail.
The sea bat moves in utter disdain of whatever passes near him. He is remorseless in his power; confident as a peacock; more arrogant than a shark.
I wondered, as I watched him coast along, if I dared challenge him. And I did dare, because I knew that if I was careful the advantage was mine. With the experience I had gained from the shark near the Perlas, I felt I could outpoint his great weight and strength. It was simply a matter of hooking him and letting him play himself out—then I could pull him in close to the side and examine him at close quarters. This was another thing I had often dreamed of doing from merchant ships.
The size of him would necessitate a heavy line; the life line from the mainsheet traveler would do. I pulled it in and bent to it twenty feet of steel wire. I worked hastily, keeping my eyes on the huge fish as he boldly slithered beneath the keel and treaded water on the port quarter. On the end of the wire I spliced my two heavy shark hooks and baited them with a large bluefish I had caught in the morning.
This tidbit I dropped practically in the big brute’s lap as he sauntered by. He deployed himself for a moment to consider it; then, with a great thrust of his batlike wings, fell on it in a rush. At the same moment, and with the same motion with which he took the lure, he plunged. I watched the line go down and come taut with such violence that the stern was pooped, and ran about three inches of water.
I watched the quiver of Pagan’s stern and the stress against the line. I was ready with my knife to cut it away at the traveler if the strain against it threatened destruction. My idea in hooking him so was that the short line with Pagan’s heaviness at the end would all the sooner wear him down. I was eager to finish him off and drag him to the stern where I could hack his jawbone out and add it to the shark’s for Mary to see.
The line slacked for a moment, then tautened to the port side with a force that veered Pagan three points off course. I went sprawling into the cockpit. By main force, my boat had been stopped in her fix. She was making no headway. She merely strained where she sat. Her stern was pulled around till the wind was threatening to jibe the sail. I bounced to my feet with a decision to cut the line.
Pagan was being jerked about at will. I stepped out of the cockpit, wondering what next. As though a mule had kicked me between the shoulders, I went tossing headlong onto the lazarette. Pagan’s decks trembled as she was jerked off course. The terror of thought gripped me; my body went cold; everything stopped. I scrambled to the stern, groping with my knife.
I heard the splintering of wood. I looked up to see the traveler being ripped away on the starboard side. It was made fast to both deck and rail by heavy screws, and yet it went as though it were tacked on. It twisted upward at a grotesque angle and bent farther as the line tightened. The strain was beginning to splinter it loose from the port rail.
I rushed to cut away the line. Something swooshed over my head. Pagan shivered mightily as she jibed and rounded up on the other tack; she was a half circle off course.
I looked at the sea and saw the devilfish was off the starboard quarter. He was on the surface and in his rage he was lathering the sea to a froth. His great wing tips were cleaving the surface, threshing like a wounded bird. Pagan was bouncing like a rowboat in a bad chop. The full weight of pull was now on the traveler where it connected to the port rail. It was now or never. I touched the taut line with the knife blade. The line snapped, unraveled, and flew at me.
There was only a swirl on the sloping wall of an onrolling wave where the devilfish had sounded into the tippled depths. Pagan, free of the restraint, quickly picked up speed.
I dropped the main immediately and pitched in to repair the twisted traveler and the splintered rail.
What a day it had been. As soon as the repairs were made, I was glad to get sail on, lash the tiller alee, and hit the sack, too tired to enter the day’s events in the log.
The next afternoon Flotsam and Jetsam added a merry note to what had been a dull day. This was one of the few days that there hadn’t been a flying fish on deck for them. Also my trawling had been to no avail. My potluck meals had netted me a can of spinach for breakfast and pineapple juice with a can of corn for lunch, not a suitable substitute for catnip.
By one in the afternoon, I still hadn’t caught them a fish. I was on deck pondering just what to do in such a weighty predicament. A rule of the sea reads that one’s sailors should eat sufficiently. Besides, morale demanded it. My crew was on the verge of mutiny. I heard a growling and scuffling unlike anything my charges had ever engaged in before. I jumped through the companionway, whence came the fracas.
There, under the forepeak, in a deathly encounter, grappled Flotsam and Jetsam—claw and fang into our passenger Stowaway. Stowaway heaved with kickings and twistings. My young lions, with claws bared and teeth dripping, jockeyed for better bite holds. Taking each of my grim starvelings by the tail, I spread them from the would-be feast. Stowaway, bruised and minus a few patches of fur, darted to his refuge.
Flotsam and Jetsam became highly indignant that they had been denied the passenger as fresh rations, and slunk into the forepeak to continue the toothsome search.
I could feel their hurts deeply, and I wanted to do right by them. So I searched among my stores of unlabeled cans for sign of a tin of fish. The cans in the lockers and in the icebox—some twenty cans in number—gave no hint that they contained fish.
According to my stores list I had 86 cans of food stored beneath the starboard bunk. To this point, I had eaten 139 of my original 248 tins of food. When I looked, I saw a sight to set one’s nerves on edge. Something was wrong. I could tell it instantly.
I had known all along that it was damp in the tight space beneath the bunk, but I had no idea that in so short a time the dampness would infiltrate into the cans. I examined each swollen, seeping tin and found all of them puffed with gas and fermented soppy liquid. Not one of the whole storage was eatable. They had putrefied to a can.
Almost I decided to put about and try to gain back against sea and current to the Marquesas. Quickly I checked through the remainder of my stores. Thus far on the trip I had devoured over half my staples. The ham, bacon, salt pork, sugar, corn meal, peaches, prunes, and cheese were gone. Of the remaining staples—oatmeal, rice, oleomargarine, hominy grits, flour, jam, and honey—there was anywhere from one fourth to three quarters of a jug of each left. I counted 150 sea biscuits, a quart of dried apples, a gallon can of ketchup, a quart of peanut butter, plenty of tea and coffee and 23 cans of food. A check on my water supply showed just under 50 gallons aboard.
Since the bulk of my food stores had been centered in the canned goods, the loss suffered under the bunk had hurt. However, on paper I shortly estimated that it was possible to extract 107 meals from the remaining supplies. I also estimated that with forty days of hard sailing I could finish off the trip to Sydney. It had to be this way: in only a month hurricane weather was due. This meant that I must ration my food, cut down to two meals a day, and eat a little less at mealtime than I was accustomed to. It was that or try to win back to the Marquesas and suffer the possibility of holing up over the hurricane season. There wasn’t time to turn back; I voted to go it to Sydney in one hard sail.
I was due to pass Caroline Island, a lonely volcanic and coral atoll, in a few days. My wicked intuition that all was well urged me to press on to the little isle, to stop long enough for coconuts as an addition to my larder.
It was about this time that I began to sense a subtle change in the weather pattern. I didn’t worry about it because there was little effect on my timetable—but I certainly didn’t like the looks of these growing changes. They argued that I speed on, that I crowd my boat to the maximum . . . that I get to Sydney as quickly as possible.
Overhead were split-tailed tropical birds; out forward shoals of flying fish flitted briefly, and in the wake were large sharks—all sure signs of land. On the morning of August 29 the loom of land raised across the bows, “right where it should be.”
With the sun’s rising I made the land—Caroline Island—to be seven miles distant, and shaped a course slightly north of South Island. On the starboard bow were a number of low mounds washed heavily by the sea.
According to the Sailing Directions, South Island is the main point in this tiny archipelago. There are supposed to be a few natives, a lot of fish around, and water ashore. A U.S. Solar Eclipse Party had been here in 1883, it said.
I sailed Pagan on a bowline for the readiest approach to the anchorage: I wanted to get done what I could before dark, so I could be on my way. I pointed up into the southwest corner of the weirdly shaped island. I donned my army fatigues and shirt; pulled on shoes and socks, the first since the Perlas; combed the salt out of my beard and hair, and took the tiller.
Not mentioned in the Sailing Directions is an active volcano, trailing a flow of smoke like a passing steamer. I kept the smoky crest on the bowsprit and dropped my homemade anchor in front of the reef-bound harbor. It took an uncertain hold and occasionally slipped. I found I had to keep my jib and staysail backing and filling to maintain a hold. Pagan rode easily, lying close under the land, catching the breeze falling from the summit.
Across the reef and over the placid lagoon I could see the shore line was planted to coconut trees. The rest was dark green jungle veering up into the heights.
Soon a sail put off from what appeared to be a small wharf. It glided over the protected bay and bounced across the thundering reef and closed in, its occupants smiling gleefully. I saluted them in as friendly a style as possible and encouraged them to moor their outrigger to my halyards.
At the helm was an old man, accompanied by his aged wife, two young men, a young woman, and two devilish looking boys and a girl. They were dark-skinned, and I am sure they were apple-cheeked under their burnt faces. They were more a Polynesian type of people—tall, brown-skinned, with long straight hair, Caucasian looking—not so squat and Negroid as the peoples I had seen farther west during the war.
They didn’t know how to take me; though they smiled, they held back. I motioned them aboard in as friendly and disarming a manner as possible and indicated seating room on the cabin and rail.
I saluted each barefoot visitor with a friendly, informal handshake and nod as he stepped aboard. The men were clad in loose-fitting lava-lavas tied at the waist and extending to the knees. The two little boys were naked. All the women were robed with lava-lavas which began at the chest. The clothes of all were worn looking; they showed holes and ragged edges. I had the feeling that even these had been put on for this special occasion. Isolation showed in their faces.
The old man styled himself promptly as chief. He indicated my boat with a sweep of his gnarled hand and smiled admiringly. He spoke in a type of French unlike anything I had heard in Algiers or Quebec during the war. We quickly contrived a sort of bêche-de-mer centered around key words such as “boat, sea, wife, man, you, me, come, go, Australia, America” and so on. He pointed out his wife, his sons and grandchildren.
The youngsters stood somewhat in awe of me, the first white man they had seen. My blond bushy beard, growing since Panama, and by now some three inches long, alarmed them. My hair by now had cropped out over my ears, was extending toward my shoulders, and was down to my eyes in front. I tried to act in such a way as to show them I was no different from other men, except that I was luckily born white and fortunate to be partly educated.
The chief glanced below decks. Seeing no one he inquired after my crew. It was difficult to explain that I was alone and the reasons for it. Somehow I put the story across; and the men especially became quite impressed, but I’m sure they didn’t believe that it was all for Mary.
In their youth the chief and his wife had lived in Papeete, the main anchorage at Tahiti. The whole group had been isolated, he explained, since the beginning of the war. When I told them the war was ended, all nodded agreeably and looked pleased, but I am sure they had no idea of who was fighting.
They fitted their mood to mine and reacted as I did. If I was amused, they were amused; if I listened very gravely to something the chief said, they in turn pondered it profoundly.
The younger men, around my age I would judge, were keen about Pagan. They were tall, square-jawed, with lean biceps and a spot of curled hair on their wide chests. They fingered the turnbuckles at the shrouds and the Manila halyards approvingly. I brought my sextant, compass, and pocket watch out. The watch fascinated them. The whole group drew in a close circle and emitted Oohs and Aahs when I unscrewed the back of the watch and displayed the intricate workings.
As I gained their confidence much jollity ensued—even the youngsters warmed up to me. A great happiness sprung up among us, and I forgot about my shortage of food and brought out nine unlabeled cans. As I gouged them open with the now rusted can opener, amazed exclamations went around. The old chief explained proudly, however, that many times before he had dined from tins.
We enjoyed our snack taken from the open can with our fingers. I ate the can of spinach that was opened because I was afraid their tastes might not appreciate it. They smacked feelingly over corn and beans, peaches and carrots, beets and applesauce, tomato soup and asparagus. Much dipping of fingers in various cans went on. While we ate I tried to explain the reason for my rustic anchor which one of the men had spotted in the shallow ice-clear water. It was difficult to tie up the modern conveniences of my craft with its incongruous ground tackle.
At this point a near riot occurred. The two boys, shuddering and jabbering, bolted from the cockpit and stumbled against the rail, falling onto the outrigger. The little girl and the young woman leaped across the row of legs to the foredeck, shrieking distractedly. Then from out of the hatchway into the cockpit sauntered Flotsam and Jetsam, padding sleepily, blinking at the unusual crowd.
The chief was the only one of the elders to recognize them as harmless, since the others had never seen a cat. My doughty crew was soon swept up by loving arms and such cooing and gushing went on as the kittens had never heard.
I invited the party down below decks to give them a clearer picture of my boat. Nine people make a cabinful on a twenty-nine-footer! But it was pleasant to hear voices in the little house that so long had been silent except for my voice talking to myself. I was satisfied merely to sit and listen to their appraisal of the fixtures, the portholes, the tools, the lantern, the mattress, my library, and the Primus stove. I took the stove down, pumped it up and fired it for them, and let them feel its fierce blaze. Anything to keep them talking.
When the young woman evinced interest in the milk cans, I offered her the empty one and she was pleased. One of the boys scrambled out of the cabin into the outrigger and returned with a huge black fish which he plopped on the deck for me. The old chief smiled magnanimously, and told me there were more ashore. It was about this time I decided to get rid of much of the junk that for a long while had littered the cabin. First I cleaned out my clothes locker. To each of the men and boys I tossed a pair of khaki army pants and a shirt. I cleaned out my tool case of extras I could do without. I heaved three empty jeep cans into the outrigger. I dragged out the spare lumber from under my bunk and set the boys to passing it up on deck. I gave them half my fishhooks and flies.
I could see the women were disappointed that I had not offered gifts in their direction. I fished in my sea bag and brought out several tablecloths my grandmother had crocheted for Mary. I explained to the ladies that they would make good dresses. I gave them my signal flags, which I had never used, for the same purpose. I gave them two of my four sail needles and a roll of twine. And I handed each an offering from the cosmetics case I had bought for Mary, but, as sane women should be, they were more appreciative of the half dozen jars with lids I gave them.
To the kids I dished out my magazines, comic books, and the jigsaw puzzle.
They took my house cleaning as a show of generosity and a greater cordiality grew up. They became willing to talk about their life ashore. They caught their water, they explained, from rainfall off their roofs, or trapped it from streamlets on the crater. They lived on taro, mangoes, and breadfruit from the interior of the island. They also domesticated pigs and chickens and caught sea life in the lagoon. I visualized the ordinariness of the life they must lead ashore with only a small patch of land under them surrounded by a monotonous sea.
Under safe circumstances I would have gone ashore as they invited, and, despite my haste to be under way, have relaxed for a day in their miniature village. But the holding power of the quickly shoaling bottom was precarious and Pagan was wantonly exposed to any shift in the weather. I pointed these things out to the group. One of the tall silent young men volunteered to stay aboard to guard against contingency. It was out of the question; it was the same as expecting me to be efficient with the intricate outrigger.
The afternoon was wearing on, the sun was well down toward the horizon, and I told the chief that I would soon be casting off. At a command from him, the outrigger, under the hand of one of the husky young men and the boys, shot over the reef and glided across the coral lagoon to the beach. In a little while it returned, lightering some water, pawpaws, breadfruit, tarl, about fifty drinking coconuts, and two small pigs and two chickens. I was overwhelmed at the generosity of an island that could ill afford to give much. My gifts, which I could easily afford, looked paltry in comparison.
I put the chickens under my bunk for the time being and turned the squealing pigs loose in the cabin. They promptly jumped all over everything. In a last-minute burst of generosity I tossed some line, some pots and pans, a can of nails and screws, an American flag, and a pair of shoes into the outrigger. These things were received happily enough, but somehow there wasn’t the spontaneous reception as at first. The children especially looked at me longingly as I prepared to go. And when Flotsam and Jetsam, with paws on the rail, peered innocently and wide-eyed upon them they melted with wistfulness and no longer concealed their desire. Then I realized . . . and it hurt to think of it. I couldn’t imagine Pagan without the kittens. They were more than a part of my boat, they were a part of my life. But still these people had precious little. I handed them into the outrigger into the happy arms of the little girl. I felt it would be cruel to deny these lonely people the company the kittens and their future generations could bring.
The time had come to go, and I must admit it weighed heavily. I knew I would soon be missing the voices, the laughter, and the warm company. It was cruel to force myself to return to the fight with the sea when here was a cool desert isle where I could put in for a rest. How many clerks, lost in a maze of office files, office routines, and the littleness of an office desk would have welcomed my opportunity?
The serious business of my leave-taking prodded me. The sun was half under the sea. I offered my hand around the sober circle and patted the young heads with whom I had established a close rapport. The old man clung to my hand; the sagging muscles of his face quivered as he passed on last-minute advice about the weather, the set of the current, and islands to westward. The young men looked wistful, and I am sure that if they had been a little more bold they would have asked to go along. Flotsam and Jetsam had found a fish in the bottom of the outrigger, and they didn’t see my preparations to go.
The last of the islanders stepped off the decks by aid of the shrouds and settled themselves into their loaded craft.
I put my tiller over alee, shook the anchor loose, weighed it to the hawse, and grappled it aboard. The mainsail fluttered up the mast; all sails bent to their work; and in a few minutes my offing was made. I turned to wave a last good-by to my friends and my kittens. The outrigger hadn’t moved; the islanders were standing and answering my wave. Then growing dusk closed them in and took them away, the distance blotted out their farewell calls.
The next morning I awakened in a calm, the first I had experienced since leaving the Galápagos, more than a month before. A little bit after daylight curtains of water driven by high winds closed around me. At first I thought it was only a series of squalls; but by noon I was heaved-to under storm sail in a gale of wind out of the south. All in one day!
I spent the day in my bunk gnawing pork joints, since I had subjected one of my piglets to his purpose the night before. That night the gooseneck broke, and I went out into the storm to wire the boom to the mast. By midnight the wind hauled around to south of east and modified. I set all sail, lashed the tiller, and made a course south of west.
After leaving Caroline Island I had a run of foul weather very like some of that I encountered on my way to the Galápagos. Always there were early morning squalls. There were occasional short calms. The wind shifted often and varied in strength. Cloud banks were heavier, wetter, and closer to the sea.
The weather was depressing. I had hoped to be making top speed over this area—instead my daily runs were lagging. I got lonesome without the kittens. I missed them snuggling in my lap when the weather deviled me. I missed their daylight capers, and when I ate the flying fish the taste wasn’t the same as when the kittens ate with me.
I tried to tame the chickens, but they were disinclined to be tamed; so I ate them. The one remaining pig squealed every time I offered friendship—so he too got the pot. There were now only Stowaway and I aboard—and he was still a confirmed crank. Old Death and his boys were around but, as always, the simple things of life didn’t concern them; they were concerned only with making a kill and gobbling it. Life on Pagan had lost the thrill of the days of Gawky, and Flotsam and Jetsam.
With the supplies I had picked up at Caroline, I looked forward with relief to the last month of the trip. Five days out from Caroline I was still gnawing pork bones and eating loads of fresh fruits and vegetables. I wanted to fatten on these perishables before my two-meals-a-day ration set in. And it was a good thing I took every available bite as I did, for even at that moment I was on the brink of the most climactic and nearly disastrous event of the trip.
The next day was Thursday, September 5, 1946—I shall never forget that day. It started like any other in this area. I woke up at daylight to find a mild southerly breeze. In the neighborhood were four squalls, and I sat at the tiller riding between them. By the time the sun was an hour high I had run off from under the slanting wet curtains and was reaching for the clear sky beyond and a good day’s sail. I was expecting to fetch land any minute in the Suvorov Islands. I had no intention of stopping; I merely wanted to bounce off them as a check on my navigation. I scaled the mast a time or two, and looked toward where the reefy group should break the horizon.
At nine o’clock the wind palled, and soon I was slatting in sticky air. Almost immediately a slight swell set in from—of all places—the north. I noted this most critically and attempted to reason out the oddity. I didn’t like the implications. They pointed to a wind somewhere in the north. The weather of the past week came back to me. I glanced over my charts, my sailing directions, my information on storms. I knew what a northerly meant in these waters but I didn’t mention it to myself.
By noon great glassy swells were crowding upon each other, still out of the north. Pagan was broached-to in their troughs; galley utensils clinked and clanked; the boom pounded where it was lashed; the blocks creaked and rattled. The sky had censored itself with a deep, gray mantle. Pagan’s unsettled groanings seemed wasted on the immensity of the outer stillness and monotony.
By three in the afternoon it had grown darker, and, it seemed, stiller. The heavy swells were gathering speed. They were larger, closer together, more purposeful. Off to the north an audible soughing whispered along the horizon.
Pagan’s sails—except her staysail—were in. She was stripped to her standing rigging, looking nude as she rolled on that indifferent sea. I lashed the boom double secure to its crutch, clinched the halyards down, and cleared the decks. I battened all ports and hatch dogs. I nailed the fore scuttle to its coamings with heavy spikes, a precaution against deep seas boarding my decks. Down below all was shipshape: gear was stowed and lashed; lockers were packed tight and strapped down; a life jacket was on my bunk. From the bunk’s edge dangled a number of short lines, to lash myself down when the need came.
On deck I sat atop the cabin . . . and waited, searching the horizon, the water, and the sky.