The Last Grain Race by Eric Newby

Author:Eric Newby [Newby, Eric]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780007597840
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2014-09-30T22:00:00+00:00

Albatross

After we had posed the albatross for our cameras on the coaming of the after wheelhouse, the Second Mate carefully folded the wings and threw it back into the water. It floated, half-submerged, unable to fly. Its brief spell on deck seemed to have deprived it of its powers, and although it made tremendous efforts to rise, the suction of the water on the lower surfaces of its wings held it down. Soon we left it astern and the other birds clustered round it.

We caught another. It was the same size as the first, and just as full of salt water. The bird was shown to the hens and the effect was astonishing. With wild shrieks of fear they bolted from the henhouse and ran about the deck in a frenzy, one being so deeply affected that it flew right over the rail. There was nothing we could do to save her as she floated passively astern towards the waiting albatross two hundred yards away.

At two in the morning on 11th December, when we were in Latitude 39° South, Longitude 9° East in the South Atlantic, our watch was called on deck to square up the yards and sheet home the fore-and-aft sail on the port side. There was a new movement in the ship now: she was rocking slightly from stem to stern.

‘Kom the Väst Vind,’ said Tria as we ground away at the Jarvis brace winches. By noon that day the westerlies were blowing strongly, lumping the rollers up behind. This was a memorable day because we ran 293 miles, and Alvar dropped our dinner on the way from the galley.

On the 13th we crossed the longitude of the Cape of Good Hope and entered the Southern Indian Ocean in 40° 33' South Latitude. Whilst running eastward we edged south to 42° and finally to 43° 47'. Sometimes the West Wind blew strongly, sometimes we were nearly becalmed. Always the drift was carrying us eastwards, thirty to forty miles a day.

By five o’clock that evening Moshulu was sailing fifteen knots. The wind was on the quarter and there was a big sea running. When Sedelquist and I took over there were already two men at the wheel. (Sedelquist was helmsman and I was help wheel.)

‘Going to be deefecult,’ he said in an unusual access of friendliness, as we stumbled out on deck, immense in our thick pilot coats, ‘going to be von bastard.’

We took over from Hilbert and Hörglund, a wild-looking but capable team. Although it was quite cold with occasional squalls of hail, I noticed that their faces were glistening with perspiration in the light of the binnacle.

‘Törn om,’ said Sedelquist, as he stepped up beside Hilbert on the weather side.

‘Törn om,’ I echoed as I mounted the platform to leeward.

‘Ostsydost,’ said Hilbert and then more quietly as the Captain was close by, ‘proper strongbody for vind, Kapten.’

The ship was a strongbody too, she was a fury, and as soon as we took over we both knew that it was going to be a fight to hold her.

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