Day Two

The morning of the second day at sea came at the change of the four bells of the morning watch.

The Kvik of Drammen had run south by east through the night at six knots and was running south by east at six knots now in the southwest wind that had held since the change of the second dog-watch on the Christmas Day. The Atlantic was the long slow swell of a southerly run in the December trade. The soft-wood deck wanted the pitch again at the seams aft of the foremast. Captain Salvesen was at the wheel-box. The man at the wheel was a Drammen-born young hand of about twenty-three whose name Olav had not yet learned. The boatswain was forward at the foremast pin-rail. The morning was the morning of the twenty-sixth of December, 1877.

Olav came up from below at the change.

He had slept four hours through the second half of the middle watch in the upper bunk on the larboard side aft of the stove. The mattress was thin and the straw was old. The blanket was the Kvik's. He had laid his coat at the foot of the bunk through the night, with the four objects in the pockets and the rosary in the inside-pocket. He had not taken the coat into his sleep.

He came on deck at the boatswain's nod.

The boatswain was a man of about thirty-five who had been on the Kvik for two voyages. He was a man of few words on a ship that did not seem to want many. He had told Olav at the eight bells of the previous evening that the morning watch would relieve at four bells. He nodded now at the change. Olav nodded back. He went forward to the foremast pin-rail and laid his hand on the splinter at the upper end of the rail where the splice had been wanting attention for some years. The splinter caught his palm. He took his hand off the rail.

The southwest wind held at twelve knots.

He did the work of the morning watch. He coiled at the cat-falls. He laid the figure-eight at the cat-falls of the Kvik that he had been laying on every Norwegian-flagged ship he had been on since the Asta in March of 1876, and the man who had taught him the figure-eight was a man whose name he did not name to himself. The boatswain stood at the side and said nothing at the laying. He had seen the figure-eight before. He had not seen it laid by an able seaman of twenty who had been at sea three years. He stood another minute and went aft to the bilge-pump.

Thomas was at the bilge-pump.

Thomas had come on deck before Olav and had been at the sounding when Olav had come up. The sounding-rod was wet at six inches above the noon-marking of the previous day. Thomas read it and laid the rod back in its place. The boatswain looked at the rod and looked at Thomas and looked at Olav. He said the springs at the bow had begun a slow gain on the second day of the run and would want a watch at every change. Olav said yes. Thomas said yes. The boatswain went aft to the wheel-box to speak with the captain.

The bow-springs were leaking before the gale.

Olav had been on the Sigrid and on the Asta and on the Dronningen, and the Dronningen had not leaked at the bow on any of the seven and one-quarter months he had been on her. The Sigrid had not leaked at the bow on the run from Hebburn home in December of 1875. The Asta had not leaked at the bow on the run from Stavanger to Bergen and back in the spring of 1876. The bow of a bark with sound caulking did not leak on a Day Two of a southerly run in the December trade. The Kvik leaked at the bow on the Day Two because the caulking had been put in for another voyage by a Wilmington stevedore in November, and what the stevedore had put in at the wharf was not what it was now on the open Atlantic in twelve knots of wind.

He took the rod and laid it again at the noon-sounding.

The man from Hamar came forward at the change of the noon watch.

He was a man of about thirty whose name Olav had not yet asked. He was congenial and he was tall and he had the long arms of a man who had grown up at a Hamar farm and had not gone to sea until late. He had told the boatswain at the signing on at Wilmington that he had been on a coaster on the Trondheim run for one summer when he was twenty-five and that this run on the Kvik was his first run on the open Atlantic. The boatswain had taken him on. The captain had signed him at the wages of an ordinary seaman. He came up to the foremast pin-rail at the noon and laid his hand on the rail without taking up the splinter the way the splinter had taken at Olav's palm in the morning. He stood at the rail for a few minutes. He did not say much.

Olav said good day to him.

The Hamar man said good day. He said the wind was a good wind. Olav said yes. The Hamar man asked how long the run to Hamburg would be at the rate the Kvik was going. Olav said the run from Wilmington to Hamburg in a December was a run of about six weeks if the trade held and the wind from the west kept the bark on the southerly run until the Bay of Biscay. The Hamar man said yes. He stood at the rail another minute. He went aft.

The captain came forward at the eight bells of the noon watch.

He had a glass in his hand. He had looked at the glass at the wheel-box in the morning, and at the change of the second dog-watch on the night before. He looked at the glass now at the foremast pin-rail. The boatswain came up to his side. The captain did not say what the glass said. The boatswain did not ask. The captain put the glass in his coat-pocket. He stopped a moment at the cat-falls before he went aft. He did not say anything at the figure-eight. He did not need to.

The bilge-rod was three-quarters of an inch above the noon at the change of the afternoon watch.

The Hamar man took the brake handle for the first time at the change of the dog-watches.

The pump was the pump of a fifteen-year bark. The brake handle was set for a man of Olav's height. The Hamar man was tall and long-armed, and the brake did not take to him the way it took to Olav, but he stood it for the first ten strokes well and the next ten less well, and the boatswain stood at the side and let him work for the rest of the change. He came off the pump at the eight bells with his arms shaking.

Olav took the brake at the change.

He took it the way a man with three years of brakes in his shoulders took a brake—knowing the difference between a brake that was wanting a man and a brake that was wanting a ship. His arms came to the rhythm slower than they had on the Dronningen the year before, and that was the typhoid still in him from Wilmington. He pumped at the Kvik's rate for the first hour of the second dog-watch. The captain came forward at the half hour and looked at the rod. He went aft.

The night came down on the southerly run.

The lamps at the binnacle and at the wheel-box went on at the eight bells of the second dog-watch. The wind held southwest at twelve knots. The bark went south by east at six knots through the night. Olav came off the brake at the change of the first watch and went below to the upper bunk on the larboard side aft of the stove, and he laid his coat at the foot of the bunk again with the four objects in the pockets and the rosary in the inside-pocket, and lay down for the four hours of his sleep.

The Day Two went to the night.

The Day Three came at the change of the four bells of the morning watch.

The bilge-rod was an inch and a half above the noon-marking of the Day Two. The southwest wind had held through the night and was holding now. The Hamar man was at the brake at the morning watch. He stood it the second time better than the first. The captain came forward at the eight bells of the morning watch with the glass in his hand and looked at it and put it back in his coat-pocket. The boatswain did not ask.

The Day Three went the way of the Day Two.

The Day Four went the way of the Day Three.

The bilge-rod was at two and a quarter inches above the noon-marking of the Day Two on the Day Four. The southwest wind had begun on the Day Four to come around to the south. The captain looked at the glass twice on the Day Four, and the second time he stood at the wheel-box for some minutes after he had put the glass in his coat-pocket. The boatswain stood at his side and did not ask what the glass said. He went forward to the foremast pin-rail at the change of the noon watch and stood at the splinter at the upper end of the rail and looked at it for a minute. He went aft.

Olav stood at the rail at the change of the second dog-watch.

He had Olava's two letters in the breast-pocket. He had the thing wrapped in a piece of brown paper in the side-pocket. He had the carte-de-visite in the wallet in the other side-pocket. He had the bone-handled knife in the coat-pocket. He had the wooden rosary in the inside-pocket of the coat where the spare shirt's button-pocket had been at the side. The chest at the foot of his bunk in the forecastle was the Kvik's, with the second mate's spare gear in it from a previous voyage. His own chest was at Goole on the Dronningen, with the spare blanket and the second pair of trousers and the spare shirt and the tin of tobacco from Isaksen at Judaberg and the writing-paper, and the chest would come to Stavanger from Goole when the Dronningen came home in the spring.

He laid his hand on the breast-pocket once and took it off.

He laid his hand on the side-pocket once and took it off.

The west had begun to take a long bank of low cloud the way cloud built at the front of weather. The cloud was the color of a piece of slate that had been wet in the morning. The wind was at the south-southwest now and was at fourteen knots. The Hamar man came up to the rail at Olav's side. He did not say anything at the standing.

The captain came forward at the eight bells of the second dog-watch.

He had the glass in his hand. He looked at the glass. He looked at the bank of cloud at the west. He went to the boatswain at the side of the wheel-box and said something at a low voice the Hamar man at the rail and Olav at the rail did not hear. The boatswain said yes. The captain went aft. The boatswain came forward to the foremast pin-rail and said the watch should make ready the second pump and that the watch below should be called at the change of the first watch.

Olav said yes.

The Hamar man said yes.

The night of the Day Four came down on the southerly run with the bank of cloud at the west and the south-southwest wind at fourteen knots and the bilge-rod at two and a quarter inches above the noon-marking of the Day Two and the second pump made ready at the side of the first.

He stood at the rail.

He did not know what was at the bottom of the chest at the foot of the bed in the small back room at Vestbø where the chest was not now and would be in the spring. He did not know what was wrapped in the piece of brown paper in the side-pocket. He did not know what was in Olava's hand at this hour at the long blue light at her upper window at Lindøy on the Day Four of the Kvik's southerly run at six hours' difference of longitude. He did not know what the Kvik of Drammen would do at the bank of cloud at the west.

The Kvik of Drammen ran south by east at six knots into the night of the Day Four with the cloud at the west and the wind at the south-southwest and the second pump made ready at the side of the first.