N by E by Rockwell Kent

Author:Rockwell Kent
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Wesleyan University Press
Published: 1996-06-15T00:00:00+00:00

HOVE to throughout the early morning watch. Thick weather; heavy sea; the wind is moderating. The skipper, cleaning the cabin, drying the saturated clothes by a hot fire in the stove that by some mystery of nature draws, pokes his head now and again into the air and sniffs the day. Decidedly; the gale is past.

By sunrise we are under way again with main and staysail. Fire below, fair wind and daylight. We’re wallowing in a heavy sea somewhere in Davis Strait, fog bound but on our course; and moving. All is well.

It is the middle of my morning watch. We roll and yaw; the gaff is thrashing viciously. Then—crack! The heavy jaw is splintered.

We heave to and lower the mainsail without mishap. And for four hours I work to make a new and better jaw out of the spare tiller that we carried.

And it was of great personal satisfaction to the ship’s carpenter that—having once observed the mate, work-minded for a moment, put back the tools on noticing that no one had sharpened them for him—he could now say, as he roughed out the new jaw with the axe, «Mate, sharpen the chisels!» And the mate did.

So, just because the boat rocked a little, the acting cook that noon hurled a dozen eggs, in the form of two oath-seasoned Riviera omelettes, into the coal scuttle before producing a third for us to eat.

Five in the afternoon; a strong beam wind, thick fog, an oily swell. Suddenly, incredibly, near to us to weather a gray steam trawler looms—and is lost again.

Land? And how far?

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