Dutch Courage and Other Stories Page 3

  TYPHOON OFF THE COAST OF JAPAN

  [Jack London's first story, published at the age of seventeen]

  It was four bells in the morning watch. We had just finished breakfastwhen the order came forward for the watch on deck to stand by to heaveher to and all hands stand by the boats.

  "Port! hard a port!" cried our sailing-master. "Clew up the topsails!Let the flying jib run down! Back the jib over to windward and run downthe foresail!" And so was our schooner _Sophie Sutherland_ hove tooff the Japan coast, near Cape Jerimo, on April 10, 1893.

  Then came moments of bustle and confusion. There were eighteen men toman the six boats. Some were hooking on the falls, others casting offthe lashings; boat-steerers appeared with boat-compasses andwater-breakers, and boat-pullers with the lunch boxes. Hunters werestaggering under two or three shotguns, a rifle and heavy ammunitionbox, all of which were soon stowed away with their oilskins and mittensin the boats.

  The sailing-master gave his last orders, and away we went, pulling threepairs of oars to gain our positions. We were in the weather boat, and sohad a longer pull than the others. The first, second, and third leeboats soon had all sail set and were running off to the southward andwestward with the wind beam, while the schooner was running off toleeward of them, so that in case of accident the boats would have fairwind home.

  It was a glorious morning, but our boat-steerer shook his head ominouslyas he glanced at the rising sun and prophetically muttered: "Red sun inthe morning, sailor take warning." The sun had an angry look, and a fewlight, fleecy "nigger-heads" in that quarter seemed abashed andfrightened and soon disappeared.

  Away off to the northward Cape Jerimo reared its black, forbidding headlike some huge monster rising from the deep. The winter's snow, not yetentirely dissipated by the sun, covered it in patches of glisteningwhite, over which the light wind swept on its way out to sea. Huge gullsrose slowly, fluttering their wings in the light breeze and strikingtheir webbed feet on the surface of the water for over half a milebefore they could leave it. Hardly had the patter, patter died awaywhen a flock of sea quail rose, and with whistling wings flew awayto windward, where members of a large band of whales were disportingthemselves, their blowings sounding like the exhaust of steam engines.The harsh, discordant cries of a sea-parrot grated unpleasantly on theear, and set half a dozen alert in a small band of seals that were aheadof us. Away they went, breaching and jumping entirely out of water. Asea-gull with slow, deliberate flight and long, majestic curves circledround us, and as a reminder of home a little English sparrow perchedimpudently on the fo'castle head, and, cocking his head on one side,chirped merrily. The boats were soon among the seals, and the bang!bang! of the guns could be heard from down to leeward.

  The wind was slowly rising, and by three o'clock as, with a dozen sealsin our boat, we were deliberating whether to go on or turn back, therecall flag was run up at the schooner's mizzen--a sure sign that withthe rising wind the barometer was falling and that our sailing-masterwas getting anxious for the welfare of the boats.

  Away we went before the wind with a single reef in our sail. Withclenched teeth sat the boat-steerer, grasping the steering oar firmlywith both hands, his restless eyes on the alert--a glance at theschooner ahead, as we rose on a sea, another at the mainsheet, and thenone astern where the dark ripple of the wind on the water told him of acoming puff or a large white-cap that threatened to overwhelm us. Thewaves were holding high carnival, performing the strangest antics, aswith wild glee they danced along in fierce pursuit--now up, now down,here, there, and everywhere, until some great sea of liquid green withits milk-white crest of foam rose from the ocean's throbbing bosom anddrove the others from view. But only for a moment, for again under newforms they reappeared. In the sun's path they wandered, where everyripple, great or small, every little spit or spray looked like moltensilver, where the water lost its dark green color and became a dazzling,silvery flood, only to vanish and become a wild waste of sullenturbulence, each dark foreboding sea rising and breaking, then rollingon again. The dash, the sparkle, the silvery light soon vanished withthe sun, which became obscured by black clouds that were rolling swiftlyin from the west, northwest; apt heralds of the coming storm.

  We soon reached the schooner and found ourselves the last aboard.In a few minutes the seals were skinned, boats and decks washed, andwe were down below by the roaring fo'castle fire, with a wash, changeof clothes, and a hot, substantial supper before us. Sail had been puton the schooner, as we had a run of seventy-five miles to make to thesouthward before morning, so as to get in the midst of the seals, outof which we had strayed during the last two days' hunting.

  We had the first watch from eight to midnight. The wind was soon blowinghalf a gale, and our sailing-master expected little sleep that night ashe paced up and down the poop. The topsails were soon clewed up and madefast, then the flying jib run down and furled. Quite a sea was rollingby this time, occasionally breaking over the decks, flooding them andthreatening to smash the boats. At six bells we were ordered to turnthem over and put on storm lashings. This occupied us till eight bells,when we were relieved by the mid-watch. I was the last to go below,doing so just as the watch on deck was furling the spanker. Below allwere asleep except our green hand, the "bricklayer," who was dying ofconsumption. The wildly dancing movements of the sea lamp cast a pale,flickering light through the fo'castle and turned to golden honey thedrops of water on the yellow oilskins. In all the corners dark shadowsseemed to come and go, while up in the eyes of her, beyond the pallbits, descending from deck to deck, where they seemed to lurk like somedragon at the cavern's mouth, it was dark as Erebus. Now and again, thelight seemed to penetrate for a moment as the schooner rolled heavierthan usual, only to recede, leaving it darker and blacker than before.The roar of the wind through the rigging came to the ear muffled likethe distant rumble of a train crossing a trestle or the surf on thebeach, while the loud crash of the seas on her weather bow seemed almostto rend the beams and planking asunder as it resounded through thefo'castle. The creaking and groaning of the timbers, stanchions, andbulkheads, as the strain the vessel was undergoing was felt, served todrown the groans of the dying man as he tossed uneasily in his bunk.The working of the foremast against the deck beams caused a shower offlaky powder to fall, and sent another sound mingling with the tumultousstorm. Small cascades of water streamed from the pall bits from thefo'castle head above, and, joining issue with the streams from the wetoilskins, ran along the floor and disappeared aft into the main hold.

  At two bells in the middle watch--that is, in land parlance one o'clockin the morning--the order was roared out on the fo'castle: "All hands ondeck and shorten sail!"

  Then the sleepy sailors tumbled out of their bunk and into theirclothes, oil-skins, and sea-boots and up on deck. 'Tis when that ordercomes on cold, blustering nights that "Jack" grimly mutters: "Who wouldnot sell a farm and go to sea?"

  It was on deck that the force of the wind could be fully appreciated,especially after leaving the stifling fo'castle. It seemed to standup against you like a wall, making it almost impossible to move onthe heaving decks or to breathe as the fierce gusts came dashing by.The schooner was hove to under jib, foresail, and mainsail. We proceededto lower the foresail and make it fast. The night was dark, greatlyimpeding our labor. Still, though not a star or the moon could piercethe black masses of storm clouds that obscured the sky as they sweptalong before the gale, nature aided us in a measure. A soft lightemanated from the movement of the ocean. Each mighty sea, allphosphorescent and glowing with the tiny lights of myriads ofanimalculae, threatened to overwhelm us with a deluge of fire. Higher andhigher, thinner and thinner, the crest grew as it began to curve andovertop preparatory to breaking, until with a roar it fell over thebulwarks, a mass of soft glowing light and tons of water which sent thesailors sprawling in all directions and left in each nook and crannylittle specks of light that glowed and trembled till the next sea washedthem away, depositing new ones in their places. Sometimes
several seasfollowing each other with great rapidity and thundering down on ourdecks filled them full to the bulwarks, but soon they were dischargedthrough the lee scuppers.

  To reef the mainsail we were forced to run off before the gale under thesingle reefed jib. By the time we had finished the wind had forced upsuch a tremendous sea that it was impossible to heave her to. Away weflew on the wings of the storm through the muck and flying spray. A windsheer to starboard, then another to port as the enormous seas struck theschooner astern and nearly broached her to. As day broke we took in thejib, leaving not a sail unfurled. Since we had begun scudding she hadceased to take the seas over her bow, but amidships they broke fastand furious. It was a dry storm in the matter of rain, but the forceof the wind filled the air with fine spray, which flew as high as thecrosstrees and cut the face like a knife, making it impossible to seeover a hundred yards ahead. The sea was a dark lead color as with long,slow, majestic roll it was heaped up by the wind into liquid mountainsof foam. The wild antics of the schooner were sickening as she forgedalong. She would almost stop, as though climbing a mountain, thenrapidly rolling to right and left as she gained the summit of a hugesea, she steadied herself and paused for a moment as though affrightedat the yawning precipice before her. Like an avalanche, she shot forwardand down as the sea astern struck her with the force of a thousandbattering rams, burying her bow to the catheads in the milky foam at thebottom that came on deck in all directions--forward, astern, to rightand left, through the hawse-pipes and over the rail.

  The wind began to drop, and by ten o'clock we were talking of heavingher to. We passed a ship, two schooners, and a four-masted barkentineunder the smallest of canvas, and at eleven o'clock, running up thespanker and jib, we hove her to, and in another hour we were beatingback again against the aftersea under full sail to regain the sealingground away to the westward.

  Below, a couple of men were sewing the "bricklayer's" body in canvaspreparatory to the sea burial. And so with the storm passed away the"bricklayer's" soul.