Boon Island - Kenneth Roberts [71]
Captain Dean and I simultaneously started for Langman; but though we were quick, we were too slow. Swede, darting from the after-cabin, swung his long right arm scythe-like at Langman. Langman rose a little to fall across the top of the bulwarks, his arms flailing, hung there a moment; then rolled over and into the harbor with a gratifying splash.
Neal, ironically enough, gaffed him and pulled him out; and as Langman mounted the ladder to stand dripping on the ladder grating, Captain Dean eyed him impassively and told him to be more careful of his footing.
For once Langman, as his glance went from Captain
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Dean's face to Swede's and mine, looked apprehensive, and he set off for the fo'cs'l without his usual disdainful reply. Neal, I was sure, would be free of Langman's attentions for some time to come.
The last of sixty thousand pounds of the best Donegal butter, all packed in firkins, and three hundred Donegal cheeses had come aboard when we set sail on September 25th on a voyage that for devilishness was enough to make me wonder again and again why any man went to sea of his own free will.
During all the time the Nottingham sailed the great circle, we saw nothing but mountainous wavesran into winds so contrary that we spent more time blundering backward than we did wallowing forward. The men, forever shortening sail, making sail, battening everything down to ride out storms that seemed to have no ending, manning the pumps, were constantly complaining, and like all men everywhere, they blamed their misfortunes on Captain Dean until I marveled at his patience.
Our water casks sprung leaks so that we had to go on short rations: our beef turned sour.
October was a villainous cold month: November was worse; and in December the sun apparently disappeared for good in a gurry of fog and dirty gray clouds.
Early in December we sighted a shipthe only sail we sighted in all that timeand spoke her, at which Langman set up his now familiar squealing that she was a French privateer.
She proved to be the ship Pompey, London bound, and her captain told us only two things: that we were off the Banks of Newfoundland, and that the weather where he'd
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come from was worse than what we'd had, no matter how bad that had been.
On Monday, December 4th, we caught a glimpse of Cape Sable in Nova Scotia. Then the weather turned dirtier than ever.
''We could make Portsmouth in a day," Captain Dean told us, "but I've got to see the sun just once before I take any chances."
So we stood off and on, and a week passed before we saw the sun.
The wind was frigid and bitter, and in the northeast, and the seas kicked up by that northeast gale seemed to run at us from every direction, instead of from the northeast. The waves, too, were dirty and gray, as if they'd gone down deep and dredged up all the sand and seaweed from the bottom.
I well remember that Monday morning when we finally caught sight of the sun. Usually a glimpse of it after a northeast blow, Captain Dean said, meant that we'd have a little decent weather. Instead of that, the sun stayed out just long enough for us to stand in toward the land and sight the long, low coast line of New England, with tree-covered points thrust out toward us, and all the ledges and hills covered with snow.
Captain Dean was elated. "That's Cape Porpoise," he said. "Now I know exactly where we are. We'll head due south, and we'll be in Portsmouth tomorrow morning."
He'd no sooner spoken than the sun disappeared