The monotonous routine of uneventful sea-life saw the big barque across the equatorial line, and the usual spell of windless calms had to be endured when the Kelvinhaugh left the dying trade winds astern in nine degrees north. After a stretch of twenty-five days, “bracing up” and “squaring away” to innumerable “cat’s paws” and flickering zephyrs, the vessel picked up the south-east trades a few degrees south of the line and, braced sharp up, made brave sailing for such a huge heavily laden craft. So far the weather had been fine and the barque had not yet been called upon to match her clumsy fabric with angry wind and sea.

It does not take a ship’s company long to size up the condition of things aboard ship, and fo’c’sle and half-deck gossip showed that the hands had pretty well taken the measure of the after-guard. Captain Muirhead turned out to be a cheap skipper, a sulky old bear, an indifferent sailor and over-fond of the bottle. In the calm, windless doldrums, he never came up on deck but what the aroma of whisky travelled with him. On these occasions he was more talkative than usual, and exhibited a fondness for yarning with the second mate. The big German would act so openly servile during these phases of the captain’s favor, that the crew had him designated as a “ruddy skipper licker.” Curiously enough, when the Old Man was sober, he treated Hinkel to the rough side of his tongue pretty frequently, and would often call him to task for errors and omissions in seamanship.

With Mr. Nickerson the case seemed to be different. The master had very little to say to him at any time, but the mate acted on numerous occasions as if he had but little use for his commander. Nickerson was undoubtedly a splendid seaman, and Martin, the bos’n, openly averred that he was the smartest mate he had ever sailed with as far as his seamanship was concerned. Thompson bore testimony to the Nova Scotian’s skill as a navigator, and stated that he had taught him wrinkles in working difficult problems which would have stumped many an extra master. But Mr. Nickerson’s harsh treatment of the crew did not win him their affections, though it commanded their fear and respect.

As the days passed, Donald prayed fervently for the voyage to end. Hinkel was fast making his life a burden to him, while Thompson’s and the bos’n’s gloomy prognostications of the future in the barque did not tend to hearten his outlook on the days to come. The boy did not worry much about the third mate’s prophecies of disaster, but when Martin began growling, it was time to take notice. “Mark me well,” croaked he to the hands, “we’ll catch hell in this hooker. Th’ pitch o’ th’ Horn in July ain’t a good season for this big hulk down there, an’ she’ll be a man-killer! Mark me well! Them big heavy yards an’ sails an’ a long ship an’ a deep ship means work an’ dirt. She’s slower’n blazes in answerin’ her helm and a lazy swine in coming about—always gittin’ in irons. An’ she’ll be wet ... a ruddy half-tide rock! Th’ grass’ll grow on them there decks afore we get around. Aye! Mark me well! There’ll be th’ devil to pay an’ no pitch hot when we git down there!”

The continual croaking about “down there” had but little effect upon Jenkins and Moore. Both had never rounded the Horn; could not imagine its frightfulness, and were not worrying. “Come day, go day, God send Sunday!” was their motto. The barque was so big and new that the Horn had no terrors in their imaginations. In a smaller, older ship it might be bad, but in the big new Kelvinhaugh?—Tcha! there was nothing to it! Donald, however, was not so optimistic. Possibly the nigger-driving he was continually subjected to somewhat obscured any rosy outlook on the future. Anyhow, he prepared for the worst and did what he could to make his poor kit fit for dirty weather and a long spell of it. Jenkins and Moore had plenty of clothes—they would pull through alright, but Donald, with his wretched rig, knew that he would get nothing more to augment it this side of the Horn. In such straits a boy could not but wish that the voyage would end.

Hinkel became more tyrannous as the barque reached to the south’ard, subjecting McKenzie to numerous petty tyrannies known in seafaring parlance as “work-up jobs.” A favorite trick of the second mate’s was to tug slyly on the bunt and leech-lines—breaking the twine or yarn which kept them from chafing the sails. He would then sing out for McKenzie to lay aloft and overhaul and stop the gear from the royal down, generally around the end of a watch. Poor Donald would have to skip up with a fist-full of rope-yarns and finish the task by the time his watch had been anywhere from half to an hour in their bunks. Aye, there are a hundred and one ways in which a despotic officer can break the spirit of a man or boy at sea! One incident north of the Plate showed the true calibre of the man, and gave Donald an experience he was never likely to forget. It was one of the outstanding incidents in his career and one of the most humiliating. Thompson had called him at the end of the first night watch. There was a strong breeze blowing aft and the barque was slugging along under all plain sail. As he pulled on his clothes, Thompson remarked jocularly, “You’re shapin’ up not too bad as a shell-back, nipper, but there’s one thing you can’t do yet.”

“What’s that?”

“You can’t chew tobacco,” replied the other with a grin. “Until you can masticate a quid you can’t call yourself a genuine deep-waterman.” “I’ll go you,” said Donald. “Gimme a bite of your plug.” And with a liberal chew in his cheek, he jumped out on deck and reported aft.

The second mate had some work for the watch for’ard and told Donald to take the wheel. The sea was slapping under the ship’s stern and causing the wheel to buck heavily, and the boy could only manage her by putting his foot on the spokes at intervals in order to rest his sorely strained arms. For almost an hour he steered and chewed on his quid, but the wrenching of the wheel was beginning to exhaust him. He had just put his foot on the lower spokes when he was conscious of Mr. Hinkel’s presence at the lee side of the wheel-box. At the same moment a heavier sea than usual smashed under the counter and the wheel jerked savagely—knocking his foot away. Grasping the spinning spokes with his two hands he tried to arrest the violent whirl, but before he could exert his strength, he was hurled completely over the wheel-box and up against the second mate. The officer slipped to his knees, but jumped up in a flash and arrested the whirling spokes. Donald lay across the grating with all the breath knocked out of him and deathly sick through swallowing the tobacco he had been valorously masticating.

Hinkel yelled viciously for a hand to take the wheel—kicking the prostrate Donald violently with his heavy boots and swearing vengeance as soon as he could leave the jerking spokes. Donald was too sick to take much heed and lay across the grating horribly ill.

“Jou verdammt schweine!” bawled the furious German as soon as he was relieved. “Ich teach you!” He grabbed the boy by the arm and dragged him across the deck, swearing in mixed English and German. Over to the hen-coops at the fore-end of the poop he hauled the unresisting apprentice, and opening up a door, jammed him headfirst in among the screeching fowls. Slamming the barred door down again, he turned the catch, and stood up. “Stay in dere dis vatch!” he snarled. “I’ll teach jou to gedt fonny me vit!”

Too sick to protest or cry out, Donald lay prone inside the narrow coop while the few remaining inmates clucked and squawked and pecked at his head. At that moment he only wished to die and end his misery, and this feeling, together with the violent jar he had received at the wheel, the tobacco in his stomach and the foul odor from the floor of the coop, sent him off into a faint.

He came-to a short time later to find himself being pulled out of the coop by Mr. Hinkel, and he heard Mr. Nickerson saying, “Bring him out!” in a voice as harsh as a file. The mate was in his shirt and under-drawers, and when Donald was hauled from his foul prison, the chief officer bent down and asked, “What in blazes were you doing, boy?” Donald related dully how he had been thrown over the wheel-box. The second mate broke in. “I tell jou, sir, he vos star-gazink und let der veel go! She nearly broached mit der jung fool’s monkey-tricks—”

The Nova Scotian leaned forward and peered menacingly into the German’s face. “Listen, Hinkel,” he said slowly and in a voice as hard as steel, but as ominous as a death threat, “I’ve got your flag an’ number, my bucko, and if I catch you man-handlin’ that boy again I’ll break you like a dry stick. You measly Dutchman!” That was all he said, quietly, so that the man at the wheel could not hear, but Hinkel was visibly impressed and without a word, turned militarily on his heels and walked to loo’ard. The mate watched him for a moment and bent down and raised Donald to his feet. “Go to yer bunk, boy, an’ stay there for the rest of the watch.” Donald staggered away feeling unspeakably grateful to his champion, and with a fixed determination to forever eschew at least one of a “dyed-in-the-wool” shell-back’s accomplishments.

That the second mate hated him, Donald knew, though he was completely at a loss to account for the continual hazing by the brutal German. Possibly, he thought, it was because the fellow was a natural bully, and Donald’s misfortune in getting the second mate into trouble with the skipper for being off the poop on the night in the Firth of Clyde may have accentuated Hinkel’s spite.

The captain’s attitude was also unaccountable to Donald’s reasoning. During the whole of the time he had been on the barque, Captain Muirhead had never spoken to him, nor had he taken notice of him in any way save by furtive glances. The man had no reason to dislike Donald, yet after the familiar conversations they had had together at Glasgow, he had now closed up like a clam, though to the other boys he often passed friendly remarks, and on occasions, corrected them with the rough side of his tongue. To Donald, he neither spoke friendly or otherwise, and the boy wondered why the skipper maintained such an attitude towards him. Thompson often commented on the fact and put forth several conclusions. “He’s either afraid of you because you’re the owner’s nephew, or else he doesn’t care a continental about you because you’re a charity ’prentice. It’s one thing or the other, sure.”

Off the Plate, Donald underwent another bitter experience which left a deep and lasting impression upon him and served to put the captain in the proper category of relationship. An English barque, homeward bound, had passed and McKenzie was on the poop handing code flags for the Old Man who spoke the barque and asked to be reported. It was blowing fresh abaft the beam, but the sea was smooth save for a long swell from the south’ard. The last hoist was flying from the spanker-gaff, when the halliard parted and the bunting came fluttering down on the poop. The other ship had got the signal, however, as her answering pennant was up, and Captain Muirhead gruffly told Mr. Hinkel to stow the flags away. During the afternoon in the second mate’s watch, the Captain suddenly told Hinkel to have the halliard rove off again as he might require it at any time. “Ye don’t need tae top up th’ gaff, mister,” the Old Man added. “Send yin o’ thae boys up. That young McKenzie is spry enough tae reeve it off!”

As the ship was running, the spanker was furled, but to shin up a slippery spar standing out from the jiggermast at an angle of about thirty-five degrees is no easy task even in a dock, and with the vessel rolling and the gaff swaying, even though braced with the vangs, the job was exceedingly risky, and able seamen would have refused to do it. Donald, however, made no demur, but jumped to obey the second mate’s guttural command. With the light halliard in his hand, he clambered up the jigger shrouds and swung down from the top on to the gaff and sat astride it facing towards the stern of the ship.

With the halliard in his teeth, he started to clamber up the pole with his arms and legs encircling it, but owing to the fact that it was a scraped spar and recently “slushed,” the task of shinning it was exceedingly difficult. Several times he hauled himself up, only to slide back, and once or twice the swaying of the ship almost caused him to slip off altogether.

“Oudt jou go, now, und no verdammt nonsings!” bawled Hinkel sixty feet below. Captain Muirhead was pacing to windward absolutely unconcerned and scarcely bestowing a glance at the boy clutching the precarious gaff. Several of the men, working in the waist, knocked off to watch the performance and the bos’n growled, “Gaudy shame! That boy can’t shin that greasy gaft. A ruddy work-up job, that what I calls it. They’re hazin’ that nipper.”

Nervous and somewhat apprehensive as to his ability to get out to the gaff-end, Donald essayed it once more. Gripping the spar with all his strength, he made a desperate effort and halted for breath a few feet short of the vangs out and above him. The swaying was worse out there and he was almost exhausted. Hanging on to the gaff was as hard as climbing out on it, so, perspiring and fearful, he made another shuffle. At the moment when he had almost reached the gaff-end, the weather vang carried away; the gaff swung to loo’ard and Donald was hurled violently off the spar. He cleared the poop rail by a few inches in his descent and plunged head-first into the sea.

Martin, the bos’n, had been waiting for just such an eventuality and he was up the poop ladder in a flash, and had thrown one of the poop life-buoys over. Without waiting for orders, the man at the wheel put the helm down and the barque was coming sluggishly up into the wind, with canvas rustling and banging. “Keep her off! Keep her off!” bawled the Old Man. “Damn an’ blast ye! Who told ye tae pit her doon? Dae ye want tae tak’ th’ sticks oot o’ her—”

The mate, in shirt and trousers, suddenly appeared aft and elbowed the captain away from the wheel. His lean face was convulsed with fury. “You white-livered hound!” he roared. “Ye’d leave that kid t’ drown, would ye? Not ef I know it! Ease yer helm down!” The captain stood, astounded, red-faced and gasping, while Hinkel ran for’ard to do something or get out of the way.

Nickerson leaped to the break of the poop. “Back yer mainyard!” he bawled. “Aft here an’ git the quarter-boat away! Rouse out the hands—cook an’ all! Aloft you, Jenkins, and keep him in sight!” Under the spur of his curses the men skipped around, and the life-boat was out of the chocks, swung out and lowered away in record time. Six men, led by Martin, the bos’n, swarmed down into her, and soon had the oars shipped and manfully pulled away in the direction indicated by Jenkins up in the jigger-rigging.

“D’ye see him, boy?”

“Yes, sir,” Jenkins answered. “He’s got hold of the ring-buoy and is about half a mile away off the beam.”

“How’s th’ boat headin’? Kin they see him?”

“They’re heading right for him, sir!” replied the apprentice.

Captain Muirhead came to himself at this juncture—he had remained beside the wheel seemingly petrified by the mate’s action in countermanding his orders—and he walked over to Mr. Nickerson with a face dark with rage. “Mr. Nickerson,” he said, in a harsh, tense voice, “Ah’ll log you for this, by Goad! It’s bliddy mutiny—no less! It’s—” He stopped at a loss for words in his passion. The Nova Scotian gave him a contemptuous glance. “You log an’ be damned to you!” he said coolly. “You an’ your ‘take th’ sticks out of her’ in a moderate breeze!” Then with a strange look in his eyes, he peered truculently into the captain’s face. “There’s something blame’ fishy about this!” he said significantly. “What are you up to? Are you trying to get rid of that kid?” Then threateningly he added, “Let me tell you, sir, that if anything happens to that nipper aboard this ship, I’ll have you jugged for it. I’ve got friends in Vancouver who’ll take you in hand, sir, an’ you’ll find they’re rough an’ ready on that part o’ the West Coast!”

The captain, with suddenly subdued expression on his face, was about to say something, but evidently thought better of it. Instead he remarked quietly, “When ye get yer boat aboard, pit her on her course again. If th’ laud wants a drap o’ whusky, Ah’ll gie ye some for him.” Then apologetically, “Ah got a bad fricht, an’ didny ken whit was happenin’ when Ah gied th’ man th’ order.” And as he turned away, Nickerson stared at him curiously and muttered, “Liar!”

Donald’s plunge into the sea knocked the breath out of him for a moment, but when he came up, gasping and half-stunned, he saw, as in a dream, a life-buoy being thrown over the barque’s taff-rail. When he regained his bearings he swam for it, and succeeded in reaching and hanging on to the circle of canvassed cork. He held on for an indefinite period, during which time he saw the Kelvinhaugh coming to the wind, and rising on top of a swell, he made out a quarter-boat pulling towards him. He shouted several times, and in a daze, heard voices. “Here he is! Steady all! Easy starboard! Pull port! ’Vast pulling all!” Then he was grabbed by the arms and hauled aboard the boat, where he lay on the bottom boards and vomited the salt water he had swallowed.

Feeling sick and shaky, he was carried into the half-deck, and Thompson and the steward took his clothes off and rolled him up in warm blankets and put him in his bunk. He was given a stiff drink of hot whisky and almost immediately went off to sleep, and the talk of the other apprentices at tea only woke him after he had slept like a log for almost five hours.

“How’re ye feeling, nipper?” enquired Thompson kindly. “Good? That’s fine. Ye’re gettin’ to be a reg’lar hell-diver, you are, and, my eye! didn’t you cause a rare rumpus!” And he told what had happened after Donald had taken the plunge. “That measly squarehead of a Hinkel is trying to do for you!” added the senior apprentice solemnly. “You should have seen him when the mate came up on deck an’ shoved the Old Man away from the wheel. The big Dutchman runs for’ard yelling in Doytch an’ what th’ blazes he was saying nobody knew. I think he was running away from Nickerson. If you wanted to see a reg’lar genuine ‘stand-‘em-up-and-knock-‘em-down,’ ‘give-me-none-of-yer-sass’ Western Ocean bucko look on a man’s face, it was on the mate’s when he called the Old Man ‘a white-livered hound!’ I guess Hinkel thought he would lay him out with a capstan-bar, so he skedaddled!”

Donald had got his clothes from the galley, where they had been dried by the cook, and was sitting in the apprentice’s berth talking with Jenkins, when Mr. Nickerson looked in. He gave Donald a sharp glance. “Nipper,” he said, curtly, “you’ll come in my watch after this. Jenkins will go in the second mate’s.”

The mate had just come from for’ard after questioning the bos’n. “Them spanker vangs, sir, were all right when I examined them day afore yest’day, sir,” Martin had said. “The tackles are brand new and there ain’t been nothin’ to cause a chafe or enough strain to strand th’ rope. Them strands, sir, were filed or scraped, sir, to make believe they was chafed or wore, and I thinks, sir, as how that second mate did it.”

“And the signal halliards?”

“They was alright, sir. Th’ Old Man, sir, jest made a slippery bend on th’ flag, I guess, and it carried away an’ un-rove.”

Mr. Nickerson nodded. “You jest keep your tongue between your teeth, Bose, an’ don’t open your trap about th’ matter to anybody. I’ll look into this.” And he walked to the half-deck and gave Donald a change of watch.