10'000 MILES AWAY

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 2, Issue 253, 23 December 1940, Page 3

10'000 MILES AWAY

Labouring under lower tops'ls, a fifteen-hundred clipper, sliip staggered into the smashing seas as in the teeth of a head-wind she tried to make her westing, rounding Cape Horn on Christmas Eve. The green and grey combers beat xrpon her mercilessly—filled her decks with a riot of water that the clanging ports could not carry oft' —swung high above her shivering crew, poised cruelly as a hawk before the strike, and then crashed down upon them, clinging for life itself to stanchion and life-line. Thirty men in that little packet faced the dreadful night- The canvas groaned :n the bolt ropes, and the running gear rattled a devil's tattoo on the shrouds and swifters. There was no light in all that black expanse—only the white of the break ing water as it swooped down in swift attack upon the struggling ship. Eight bells! It Avas Christmas Day. Ten thousand miles away Yule logs were burning, choirs carolling at hospitable doors. People Avere wishing each other a merry Christmas before they Avent oft to a Avarm bed and peaceful sleep. There Avas no sleep for us. "All hands to the fore tox>s'i!" Our galley fire had been out four days. In all that time no warm liquid or cooked food had passed our lips. Our seaboots were lull of water, and our oilskins made a jest of protecting drenched clothes. It Avas very bitterly cold—although it Avas mid-summer in J.hose unkindly latitudes. We had been looking forAvard to Christmas Day for a month, as eagerly as small children at home —to an extra "Sunday'" in a hard working week, to plum dulf, and to the infrequent to? of rum; that marks high days and holidays for the limejuice sailor. And the reality—this!

Wc hauled on the ropes with hands that had no feeling. Wc even tried to raise a taint "O-oh", but it rang false. Then .into the weather rigging, and up, crushed to -the shrouds by the fury of the wind— onto the swaying footrope, out to the j-ard arm. The buffeted sail, swaying and pounding us like a live creature in agony, tore at our finger nails, and the reef-points whipped our faces until the blood came. Christmas! At last the sail was furled on thy yard and the last gasket passed. We slid down to the fury of sea that .was the deck. The old packet was snugged dowr for another hoar or two. "That'l do, the watch. Relieve the wheel and lookout. A merry Christmas, men!"' "Same to von, sir . . . merry Christmas ..." We went below to wet hunks and two hours' doubtful sleep.