Hawaii - James Michener [116]
"I'm fearfully cold," Jerusha told her husband, but there was nothing he could do. The little Thetis kept probing southward toward the Cape itself, and each day took her into colder waters. The thermometer stood at thirty-nine degrees, with no fires allowed on board. Bedding was wet from the dousing and all gear was molding in unaired boxes. Most of the time the hatchway was covered, so that no air swept into the dank confined cabin, and with no freedom for walking, griping biliousness overtook the missionaries.
On Tuesday, November 27, John Whipple hurried below with heartening news. "We can see Staten Island to port, so we must be approaching the Cape. The waves aren't as big as we feared." He led his companions aloft to view one of the bleakest, loneliest lands on earth, lying off the tip of the continent. Through partial mist its low treeless hills were visible, and Whipple said, "We are seeing it in summer. Imagine what it must be like in winter." But the missionaries were looking not at Staten Island, but rather at the terrifying waters that lay ahead.
There, at the southern tip of the habitable world, in a latitude of fifty-five degrees, the earth-girdling southern currents that thundered in from the lower Pacific crashed into the turbulent swells of the Atlantic, and the missionaries could see that the resulting waves were mountain-high and clothed with fog and fear. If a sailor were lucky enough to hit Staten Island with an easterly at his back, he could penetrate those monstrous waves with some hope of success, but when, as in late November of 1821, both the set of the Pacific and the bearing of its winds were from the west, there was slight chance of doubling the Cape.
But Captain Janders, face grim within the rim of sandy whiskers, was stubbornly determined to prosecute every chance. "I'll not be the captain who has to write in his log, 'Today abandoned hope of doubling Cape Horn and turned back across the Atlantic to try Cape Good Hope. If you write that in your log, they never let you forget it. You're the Yankee who couldn't double the Cape." So he gambled that either the wind would veer to the east and blow him through, or that the Pacific swell would somehow abate and allow him to beat into the wind, no matter where it stood.
"I am convinced that one or the other will happen," Janders repeated doggedly. But on the evening of Thanksgiving Day he stumbled down into the cabin and said dourly, "If any of you missionaries have personal knowledge of God, I would appreciate your prayers now."
"Do the winds continue against us?" Abner asked.
"Never seen 'em so bad," Janders growled.
"Will we have to turn back?" one of the wives inquired.
"No, ma'am, we won't!" Janders said firmly. "There'll be no man say I tried the Cape and failed."
When he was gone back to the deck John Whipple said, "I see no fault in supporting him with our prayers."
"Nor do I, Brother Whipple," Jerusha said, and Dr. Whipple prayed: "Let us recall the reassuring words of Proverbs: 'I neither teamed wisdom, nor have the knowledge of the holy. Who "hath ascended up into the heavens, or descended? who hath gathered the wind in his fists? who hath bound the waters in a garment? who hath established all the ends of the earth? what is his name?' Brethren, we who stand at the ends of the earth, where the winds are gathered in God's fist against us, let us not forget that it is the just man whom God tries. The evil man passes and repasses this Cape with no concern, for he has already been tested. It is you and I who have not been tested. Let us pray that these winds