Once Is Enough by Miles Smeeton

Author:Miles Smeeton
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9780007550296
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2013-11-30T05:00:00+00:00

THE FINAL JURY-RIG

On March 10 we were running well with the raffee and the main. Beryl was patching the little storm-jib to make a mizzen sail, and John was making a gooseneck to fit an oar, so that it could be used as a boom for the mizzen. In the afternoon the wind strengthened and came more from the north-west, so that Tzu Hang began to fall off in her course. We set the mizzen and she came back again. Then she began to point a little high, so we reefed it, this tiny little sail; it made just the required difference, and she held to her course once more. For the next two days we made great running, but the wind was hauling round to the south, and we found ourselves sailing west of north, away from the coast of Chile, so we went to the starboard tack. We decided to make Mocha Island our landfall; Mocha Island which Drake had visited on his way up from Magellan and had gained some information about the Spaniards on the mainland. We were into the south winds now, the south winds and the northerly drift of the Humboldt current, and we would have to watch the current, so that we were not carried north of the port that we were aiming for.

The setting up of this mast marked a new phase in our journey since the smash. The first phase had been the struggle for survival, the second one of hope and hard work, and now, and until we closed the Chilean coast, we could imagine almost that we were cruising again. We were much more relaxed and had no serious work to do. It was warmer, and we spent much of our time on deck. Most of the books had been tightly jammed in their shelves, so there was still something to read. The fishing rod was brought out, and John amused himself by making lures from fish-hooks and wool of various colours. He preferred to catch a fish on something that he had made himself, rather than on one of the spoons that we still had on the ship. He spent hours also in re-assembling his camera. When everything was fitted together again, he found that he had a small spacing washer left over. But on the second attempt he succeeded in making it run again. In the evening we used to play a home-made game of scrabble.

We decided to make for Talcahuano, the Chilean Navy Base, for I knew that they had many links with the British Navy and that they would probably be able to give us some assistance. Beryl had been in Chile two years before the war, when she had done a great ride up the Western Cordillera from Magallanes. She had stayed in Talcahuano with a friend, whose name she remembered. The house was on a cliff over the sea, and there was a white rock in the water beneath it, but she had heard that the house had been destroyed in the earthquake.

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