On the thirty-second day of this desolate passage an easterly wind sprang up and whisked the little brig along the north shore of Desolation Island, a location made more terrible by the fact that sailors spotted the stern boards of some ship that had foundered on the rocks. The sea grew rougher, and eighteen of the missionaries found it advisable to stay below, where the smell of bananas added to their qualms. That night Jerusha declared that she could not, on pain of death, eat another banana, but Abner, having heard such protests before, gallantly ate his half, then forced the remainder into Jerusha’s mouth. “You may not get sick,” he commanded, holding her stomach in his control. But the ship lurched as the first fingers of the Pacific swell probed into the passage, and neither Jerusha nor Abner could dominate her retching, and she began to vomit.
“Mrs. Hale!” he shouted, clapping his other hand over her mouth, but the sickness continued until the berth was fouled. “You did that on purpose!” he muttered.
“Husband, I am so sick,” she whimpered. The tone of her words impressed him, and tenderly he cleaned away the mess, making her as comfortable as possible.
“I’m not doing this to torment you, my dear companion,” he argued. “God sent us these bananas. Look!” And he took down one of the yellow fruits, which he had grown to detest, and ate the entire thing.
“I’m going to be sick again!” she cried, and again he washed away the filth.
The next morning showed that the Thetis had run to the end of Desolation Island and had completed more than ninety-nine hundredths of the Magellan passage. All that remained was to effect the short dash past the Four Evangelists, four cruel and unpopulated rocks that guarded the western entrance to the strait. So at dawn on Tuesday, January 22, 1822, the little brig left the protection of Desolation Island to test the meeting ground of storms, the wave-racked confluence of the easterly moving Pacific and the westerly moving Atlantic, and as the whaling captain had predicted, the good winds that had accompanied the Thetis on her last days now accounted for a turbulence that no man aboard the ship had hitherto experienced.
Gigantic waves from the Pacific lashed in with terrifying force, apparently able to sweep all before them, but the choppier sea from the Atlantic rushed like a terrier into the thundering surf and tore it into a thousand separate oceans, each with its own current and direction. As his small craft approached this multiple maelstrom Captain Janders ordered, “All hands on deck lash yourselves to the ship,” and lines were secured about waists and chests, and hand holds were quickly improvised, and the Thetis, all openings closed, plunged into the tremendous confusion.
For the first fifteen minutes the tiny brig was thrashed about as if the terriers of the sea had left off tormenting each other and had turned on her. She was lifted up and thrown down, ripped along on her port beams, then wallowed over and thrown backwards. She slipped and slid, and no man not tied to her decks could have survived aloft.
“Do you keep your eye upon the Evangelists, Mister Collins?” Captain Janders shouted above the fury.
“I do, sir.”
“Can we take more seas, Mister Collins?”
“We cannot, sir.”
“We’ll turn and run.”
“Mind the rocks, sir.”
And the Thetis, whipping around, slashed into the violent seas coming from the Atlantic, and sped like a wounded sea animal back to Desolation Island. Below, the missionaries prayed. Not even the sick were able to remain in their berths, so violent the shaking and pitching had been.
Suddenly it was calm, and Captain Janders hid his little craft in a snug harbor whose shoreline was shaped like a fishhook. And each morning for the next week, Abner Hale, John Whipple, two other missionaries and four stout sailors rowed ashore with long ropes attached to the prow of the Thetis. Running around to the tip of the fishhook, they would strain and dig into the sand, pulling until the brig began to move. Slowly, slowly, they would tow it out to the entrance of the main passage, and then run back to the rowboat and overtake it.
And each day for a week the Thetis nosed its way carefully into the meeting ground of the oceans, tested them, tried, valiantly probed, and courted destruction. The turbulence was so majestic that there seemed no possibility of subduing it, and the sailors lashed to the masts wondered if the captain would turn and head back through the strait for Good Hope. But each evening Captain Janders swore, “Tomorrow we’ll break the spell. Tomorrow we’ll be free.” In his log he wrote: “Tuesday, January 29. Tried again. Gigantic swells from Pacific clashing with choppy sea from Atlantic caused scenes of most frightful violence. Surges so high no ship could master them. Ran for same harbor.”
On the thirtieth day of January the winds veered to the west, which in the long run was a good thing in that they would now stop supporting the Atlantic choppiness and turn to stabilizing the unhampered Pacific; but their immediate effect was to prohibit any further assault on the exit. Therefore, the Thetis remained tied to shore in her snug fishhook harbor while Captain Janders, Mister Collins, Abner and John Whipple climbed a small hill to survey the wild confluence of the oceans. They could not see the Four Evangelists, but they knew where they were, and as they studied the pattern of the giant waves, Abner said, “Have you thought, sir, that perhaps you are being held back by God’s will?”
Captain Janders did not growl at the young man. “I am willing to consider anything, if only we can breast that damned mile of ocean.”
“It occurred to me last night,” Abner said, “that your insane refusal to dispose of your worldly novels has cursed this ship.”
Mister Collins looked at the young minister with blank astonishment and was about to make an obscene expostulation when Janders silenced him. “What did you have in mind, Reverend Hale?”
“If we missionaries can pray, and if we can get this ship through the barrier, will you then dispose of your worldly literature, and as the captain of a ship that needs God, accept books from me?”
“I will,” Janders said solemnly. And the four men, standing on a hill at the end of the world, entered into a compact, and when the missionaries were gone, Janders justified himself to his first mate: “I am determined to pass this point. I’ve never seen such seas as we encountered at Cape Horn. Now this. Call me superstitious if you will, but it’s bad luck for a ship to carry a minister. We’ve got eleven of ’em. If they’re the cause of the bad luck, maybe they can also be the cause of good luck. I’ll try anything.”
That night Abner assembled the missionaries and told them of the compact. “God has been holding this ship back to teach us a lesson,” he assured them, “but our prayers will lift the curse.” To John Whipple and others, this seemed like medievalism, and they would not pray, but the majority did, and at the end of the prayer Whipple asked if he might pray, too, and Abner assented. “Lord, strengthen the hands and the eyes of our mariners,” Whipple prayed. “Abate the wind, lower the waves and let us pass.”
“Amen,” Captain Janders said.
After prayers, Abner visited Jerusha, still bedridden, and shared a banana with her. When she protested that it was this which was keeping her abed, he pleaded: “We are placing our destiny in the hands of God tonight. Please bear with me, beloved companion, and if we pass the barrier tomorrow, you will not have to eat any more bananas.”
“Is that a sacred promise?” she asked.
“It is,” he assured her. So she mastered her gorge, felt her husband’s firm hand on her stomach, and ate.
At four o’clock in the morning the entire ship met for prayers, and after the missionaries had spoken long, Captain Janders prayed, “Lord, get us through.”
It was not yet five when Abner and John rowed ashore with their six regular towing companions, and the small craft edged its way into the main channel, but when the rope men were hauled back on board, Abner announced: “This day I want to pray on deck.”
“Lash yourself to the mast,” Janders grunted. To Collins he said, “The waves are as big as ever, but the sea
is steadier and we have a wind we can cut into.”
“As good a day as we’ll get,” the mate calculated.
“We’re away!” Janders cried, and the Thetis probed far out to sea, well south of the Four Evangelists and into the wildest part of the ocean.
These were the hours of decision. Two days ago the problem had been to ride with the helpful wind from the stern, trying to accumulate sufficient speed to penetrate the massive waves. Now the wind was full in the face, and the Thetis had to tack first north, then south, then north, trying always to gain a few hundred yards of purchase in the sea, so that on one great burst to the north the tiny brig would at last clear the Evangelists. The grave danger involved was that on the vital run to the north, the Thetis would not hold its advantage, but would be swept sideways by the waves, and onto the rocks, crashing in final and hopeless destruction.
The hours of early morning passed, and the Thetis made one fruitless tack after another. Often on her beam ends, she fought vainly for leverage against the sea, but Abner could feel her slipping away, back toward Desolation Island, away from the line of safety that would permit a long tack past the Four Evangelists.
The hours of midday came and went, and the little brig fought on. Now she gained a mile and entered a more turbulent part of the ocean, where the full and mighty Pacific lashed out at her, and the timbers creaked and the masts swayed and Abner watched the whiskered face of Captain Janders, peering ahead, calculating the wind.
At three in the afternoon the pounding became almost unbearable on deck, and all not lashed down would have been washed away by the gigantic seas, so that Abner prayed, “Dear God, care for those below. Let the air they breathe be sweet.” And he could smell the foul air of the staterooms and pitied the missionaries.
At four o’clock, but with no fear of encroaching dusk, for the summer sun would not set till nearly ten, the position of the Thetis was perilous. For Captain Janders was required either to stand farther out to sea and thus surrender all hope of running safely back to Desolation Island, or to abandon this day’s attempt. He was loath to do the latter, because he had got closer to position than ever before, so for some minutes in the height of the gale he pondered.
“There’s only half a mile more of turbulence,” he shouted to Mister Collins.
“Hardly that, sir.”
“Do you keep your eye on the Evangelists?” Janders cried.
“I do, sir.”
“How many points more to windward must we head to pass the rocks, Mister Collins?”
“Three, sir.”
“Can we hold such a course?”
The question was an unfair one, and both Janders and Collins knew it, for the captain was trying to tempt his mate into making the ultimate life-or-death decision. Mister Collins looked doggedly ahead and said nothing.
“Can you ease her three points into the wind, Mister Collins?”
“That I can, sir!” And the creaking Thetis bit more directly into the storm.
“If we hold this tack, will we clear the rocks, Mister Collins?”
“Yes, sir. If we hold this tack.”
The two men stood tensely, trying to detect any notice of the brig’s slipping in the great troughs, but she held firm. A minute passed, then two, then three, and finally Captain Janders shouted to all topside, “We’ll run for the rocks. Stand ready to cut yourselves loose and tend the ropes.”
Rarely did a group of men sailing a ship face a more clear-cut problem. If the winds held, and the keel maintained its cut into the waves, this long tack would throw the Thetis just outside the Four Evangelists, and the penetration would have been accomplished, for on the southward tack the little ship could sail all night if necessary, until the last turbulence was cleared.
“Now’s the time to pray, Reverend Hale,” Janders shouted above the wind, and Abner, lashed to the mainmast at both the armpits and waist, prayed only that the present relationship of ship and ocean and wind be maintained.
Then came Mister Collins’ calm warning: “She’s slipping, sir.”
“I feel her slipping, Mister Collins,” Captain Janders replied, his stern face hiding his fear.
“Shall we raise the topsail a little more into the wind?”
“Raise her all the way, Mister Collins.”
“She may carry away, sir, in this wind.”
Captain Janders hesitated, studied the way in which his brig was losing purchase, and cried, “We’ve got to have that sail! If it holds, we’ll make it. If it carries away, no matter. We were lost anyway.” And he whipped around toward where his men were lashed, shouting directions that sent them hauling ropes which started the after topsail higher into the wind, where it could counteract the sideward set of the ocean. But as the men hauled, their lines caught in the top block, and the triangular topsail whipped dangerously in the wind, and the Thetis appeared doomed.
“You and you, clear the top block!” Janders shouted. And from the stormy deck, where they had been lashed to save themselves, Cridland and the old whaler cut themselves loose and grabbed for the ropes leading to the top of the mainmast.
They climbed like monkeys, four secure hands, four certain feet clinging to the ropes as the mast whipped back and forth in the freezing storm. Higher and higher they went, as their ship drifted toward the rocks. “May God protect them,” Abner prayed, as they dangled far above his head.
The Thetis now entered a segment of the sea where the waves were of special violence, for they were rebounding from the Evangelists off to starboard, and as the little brig rolled from one beam end to the other, torn this way and that, the top of the mainmast, where the two sailors worked, slashed swiftly in great arcs of more than a hundred degrees. At the extremity of each swing the tall mast whipped sharply, whistling in the wind, as if determined to dislodge the men that annoyed its ropes. On one such desperate passage Cridland lost his cap, and in grabbing for it with his right hand, he seemed, as viewed from below, to have been swept away, and Abner screamed, “God save his soul!” But it was only his hat that was gone.
“Try the ropes again!” Captain Janders shouted.
“They don’t pull clear yet,” the second mate yelled above the storm.
“Are we drifting toward the rocks, Mister Collins?”
“We are, sir.”
“Shall we send more men aloft?”
“Nothing any more can do,” Collins replied.
So the two mariners stared ahead in the late afternoon storm, feeling the ship, praying. “Try the ropes again!” Janders cried, but again they failed to respond. Clasping his hands behind him, Janders took several deep breaths and said with resignation, “We’ve about eight more minutes, Mister Collins. This was a sane try.”
At this point Abner forgot the navigators near him and focused only on the two sailors, who continued to fly through great sickening arcs of heaven. Freezing rain and howling winds were upon them; the violence of the pitching ship seemed concentrated at the point where they labored; and Abner recalled the plea of the old whaler: “I would not like to round Cape Horn without a Bible.” And he began to pray for the salvation of these two brave men on whom the safety of the brig now rested. And as they flashed through the gray sky, riding high in the heart of the storm, his agonized prayers went with them.
“Try the ropes again!” Janders called at the expiry of two of his vital eight minutes, and this time the sailors shouted madly, and the ropes moved, and the after mainsail crept slowly up the swaying mast, and wind was mysteriously trapped in its triangular expanse, and the sliding shoreward stopped.
“I feel her steady on course,” Janders shouted.
“She is steady on,” Collins repeated.
“Will she clear the Evangels?” Janders checked.
“She will clear them,” Collins replied dully, hiding the exultation his heart felt.
And as the last fearful moments passed, the little brig Thetis maintained her northward tack into the storm, until at last she neared the perilous
rocks, and all on deck saw that she would pass them by a margin of dreadful precision.
“The Lord God of Hosts is with us!” Abner shouted in unministerial joy.
But Captain Janders did not hear, for he kept his eyes fixed ahead, refusing to look at the Evangelists. He was seeking the ocean area where it would be safe for him to swing the Thetis onto her new and final tack. Minutes passed, then a quarter of an hour, then a half hour, and still he kept his eyes monotonously fixed on the great, heaving ocean, until finally, in swift alteration, he heeled the brig over, and cut her back on a southward tack that would carry her through the last mountainous waves and down the final vile troughs. Then he shouted, “Bring the men down.” And Cridland and the old whaler came down from their dizzy perch and found footing on the deck. “May God be praised,” Abner mumbled.
Yet at this exact moment, when he was entitled to share in the ship’s jubilation, Abner was grave, as if in a trance, thinking: “Two days ago when a comforting wind was at our back, we were unable to accomplish anything. But today, with the gale right in our faces, we were able to fight it.” He studied the little brig to discover the secret whereby a New England ship could cut directly into the heart of a storm, combating the elements each inch of the way, and although he did not understand the technique Captain Janders had utilized, he understood the man, and all men, and himself. “How strange,” he reflected in the howling wind, “that when the storm is in your face, you can fight it.”
Later, when Captain Janders unleashed Abner, the mariner said, in a kind of daze, “I would not want to be the captain of whom it was said in Boston, ‘He tried to round the Horn, but ran instead for Good Hope.’ ”
“No one will say that of you, Captain,” Abner said proudly.
The hatches were broken open and Mister Collins shouted the good news to the missionaries: “We are safe!”
All below who could stand piled on deck, and in the cold wind Captain Janders said, “Reverend Hale, through God’s grace we broke through. Will you pray?” But for the only time on the voyage, Abner was numbed into silence. His eyes were filled with tears and he could think only of Cridland and the whaler, whipping through distant space, working to save the ship, and of Captain Janders fighting the storm, so John Whipple read from the sweet thundering passages in the Psalms that sailors love:
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