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Updated: June 19, 2025
Presently they heard him mumble to himself: "A small wind setting from the west'ard, twenty-four hours of drift for the lads' raft, a dozen leagues, I call it." He looked up from the chart to ask: "The wreck was lodged fast in smooth water and holding together?" "Aye, but in peril of working off and sinking like an iron pot," answered Joe. "For this reason the people were in haste to quit her."
But four nights ago come last night yes, that's right, it were four nights ago 'bout three bells in the middle watch, while it were blowin' hard from the west'ard and we were runnin' under single-reefed topsails, with a very heavy sea chasin' of us, the night bein' dark and thick with rain, somebody comes rushin' out of the poop cabin yellin' like mad, and, afore anybody could stop him, sprang on to the lee rail, just the fore side of the main riggin', and takes a header overboard!"
Naturally, in such a storm, those on board were anxious, for they knew that they were drawing near to land, and that "dear Old England" had an ugly seaboard in these parts a coast not to be too closely hugged in what the captain styled "dirty weather, with a whole gale from the west'ard," so a good lookout was kept.
But Trunnell cut me short. "No, Mr. Rolling, there ain't no use disguising the fact any more, this skipper don't know nothin' about a ship. You'll find that out before we get to the west'ard o' the Agullas. Mind ye, I ain't making no criticism o' the old man.
"When my wife took sick, and I stopped goin' to sea, two year ago, and took up boat-fishin', I didn't know half as much about the coast as the young boys do, and one afternoon it was blowin' a gale, and we was all hands comin' in, and passin' along the Bar to go sheer 'round it to the west'ard, and Captain Fred Cook he's short-sighted got on to the Bar before he knew it, and then he had to go ahead, whether or no; and I was right after him, and I s'posed he knew, and I followed him.
We have to get into Budmouth, join the rest of the troop, and then march along the coast west'ard, as I imagine. At this rate we shan't be well into the thick of battle before twelve o'clock. Spur on, comrades. No dancing on the green, Lockham, this year in the moonlight! You was tender upon that girl; gad, what will become o' her in the struggle?
Without even a halt in his heaving in of the trawls, he took to singing: "It came one day, as it had to come I said to you 'Good-by. 'Good luck, said you, 'and a fair, fair wind' Though you cried as if to die; Was all there was ahead of you When we put out to sea; But now, sweetheart, we're headed home To the west'ard and to thee.
"Well, Mr Bowles," said the captain, as he rose to his feet, "what weather have you had? Is there any wind at all?" "Very little, sir," answered the chief mate, replying to the last question first; "just a cat's-paw from the west'ard bow and then, but nothing worth speaking about; and it's been the same all through the watch.
An' the reason so many sailors find fault all the time is because they is failures. I am tryin' not to find fault with the skipper, but to pint out that we're in for some rough times if things don't change aboard in the sailorin' line afore we gets to the west'ard o' the Agullas.
But I had to go; railroads don't wait for nobody; and what with the long journey, and the new ways and things and people, I hadn't no time to get real down once before we got to Indiana. After we left the boat there was a spell of railroad, and then a long stage-ride to Cumberton; and then we had to hire a big wagon and team, so's to get us out to our claim, thirty miles west'ard of Cumberton.
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