Make Westing

by Jack London

For seven weeks the Mary Rogers had been between 5O degrees south in theAtlantic and 5O degrees south in the Pacific, which meant that for sevenweeks she had been struggling to round Cape Horn. For seven weeks she hadbeen either in dirt, or close to dirt, save once, and then, following uponsix days of excessive dirt, which she had ridden out under the shelter ofthe redoubtable Terra del Fuego coast, she had almost gone ashore during aheavy swell in the dead calm that had suddenly fallen. For seven weeks shehad wrestled with the Cape Horn graybeards, and in return been buffeted andsmashed by them. She was a wooden ship, and her ceaseless straining hadopened her seams, so that twice a day the watch took its turn at the pumps.The Mary Rogers was strained, the crew was strained, and big Dan Cullen,master, was likewise strained. Perhaps he was strained most of all, forupon him rested the responsibility of that titanic struggle. He slept mostof the time in his clothes, though he rarely slept. He haunted the deck atnight, a great, burly, robust ghost, black with the sunburn of thirty yearsof sea and hairy as an orang-outang. He, in turn, was haunted by onethought of action, a sailing direction for the Horn: Whatever you do, makewesting! make westing! It was an obsession. He thought of nothing else,except, at times, to blaspheme God for sending such bitter weather.Make westing! He hugged the Horn, and a dozen times lay hove to with theiron Cape bearing east-by-north, or north-north-east, a score of milesaway. And each time the eternal west wind smote him back and he madeeasting. He fought gale after gale, south to 64 degrees, inside theantarctic drift-ice, and pledged his immortal soul to the Powers ofDarkness for a bit of westing, for a slant to take him around. And he madeeasting. In despair, he had tried to make the passage through the Straitsof Le Maire. Halfway through, the wind hauled to the north'ard of north-west, the glass dropped to 28.88, and he turned and ran before a gale ofcyclonic fury, missing, by a hair's-breadth, piling up the Mary Rogers onthe black-toothed rocks. Twice he had made west to the Diego RamirezRocks, one of the times saved between two snow-squalls by sighting thegravestones of ships a quarter of a mile dead ahead.Blow! Captain Dan Cullen instanced all his thirty years at sea to provethat never had it blown so before. The Mary Rogers was hove to at the timehe gave the evidence, and, to clinch it, inside half an hour the MaryRogers was hove down to the hatches. Her new maintopsail and brand newspencer were blown away like tissue paper; and five sails, furled and fastunder double gaskets, were blown loose and stripped from the yards. Andbefore morning the Mary Rogers was hove down twice again, and holes wereknocked in her bulwarks to ease her decks from the weight of ocean thatpressed her down.On an average of once a week Captain Dan Cullen caught glimpses of the sun.Once, for ten minutes, the sun shone at midday, and ten minutes afterward anew gale was piping up, both watches were shortening sail, and all wasburied in the obscurity of a driving snow-squall. For a fortnight, once,Captain Dan Cullen was without a meridian or a chronometer sight. Rarelydid he know his position within half of a degree, except when in sight ofland; for sun and stars remained hidden behind the sky, and it was sogloomy that even at the best the horizons were poor for accurateobservations. A gray gloom shrouded the world. The clouds were gray; thegreat driving seas were leaden gray; the smoking crests were a graychurning; even the occasional albatrosses were gray, while the snow-flurries were not white, but gray, under the sombre pall of the heavens.Life on board the Mary Rogers was gray--gray and gloomy. The faces of thesailors were blue-gray; they were afflicted with sea-cuts and sea-boils,and suffered exquisitely. They were shadows of men. For seven weeks, inthe forecastle or on deck, they had not known what it was to be dry. Theyhad forgotten what it was to sleep out a watch, and all watches it was,"All hands on deck!" They caught snatches of agonized sleep, and theyslept in their oilskins ready for the everlasting call. So weak and wornwere they that it took both watches to do the work of one. That was whyboth watches were on deck so much of the time. And no shadow of a mancould shirk duty. Nothing less than a broken leg could enable a man toknock off work; and there were two such, who had been mauled and pulped bythe seas that broke aboard.One other man who was the shadow of a man was George Dorety. He was theonly passenger on board, a friend of the firm, and he had elected to makethe voyage for his health. But seven weeks of Cape Horn had not betteredhis health. He gasped and panted in his bunk through the long, heavingnights; and when on deck he was so bundled up for warmth that he resembleda peripatetic old-clothes shop. At midday, eating at the cabin table in agloom so deep that the swinging sea-lamps burned always, he looked as blue-gray as the sickest, saddest man for'ard. Nor did gazing across the tableat Captain Dan Cullen have any cheering effect upon him. Captain Cullenchewed and scowled and kept silent. The scowls were for God, and withevery chew he reiterated the sole thought of his existence, which was makewesting. He was a big, hairy brute, and the sight of him was notstimulating to the other's appetite. He looked upon George Dorety as aJonah, and told him so, once each meal, savagely transferring the scowlfrom God to the passenger and back again.Nor did the mate prove a first aid to a languid appetite. Joshua Higginsby name, a seaman by profession and pull, but a pot-wolloper by capacity,he was a loose-jointed, sniffling creature, heartless and selfish andcowardly, without a soul, in fear of his life of Dan Cullen, and a bullyover the sailors, who knew that behind the mate was Captain Cullen, thelaw-giver and compeller, the driver and the destroyer, the incarnation of adozen bucko mates. In that wild weather at the southern end of the earth,Joshua Higgins ceased washing. His grimy face usually robbed George Doretyof what little appetite he managed to accumulate. Ordinarily thislavatorial dereliction would have caught Captain Cullen's eye andvocabulary, but in the present his mind was filled with making westing, tothe exclusion of all other things not contributory thereto. Whether themate's face was clean or dirty had no bearing upon westing. Later on, when5O degrees south in the Pacific had been reached, Joshua Higgins would washhis face very abruptly. In the meantime, at the cabin table, where graytwilight alternated with lamplight while the lamps were being filled,George Dorety sat between the two men, one a tiger and the other a hyena,and wondered why God had made them. The second mate, Matthew Turner, was atrue sailor and a man, but George Dorety did not have the solace of hiscompany, for he ate by himself, solitary, when they had finished.On Saturday morning, July 24, George Dorety awoke to a feeling of life andheadlong movement. On deck he found the Mary Rogers running off before ahowling south-easter. Nothing was set but the lower topsails and theforesail. It was all she could stand, yet she was making fourteen knots,as Mr. Turner shouted in Dorety's ear when he came on deck. And it was allwesting. She was going around the Horn at last . . . if the wind held.Mr. Turner looked happy. The end of the struggle was in sight. ButCaptain Cullen did not look happy. He scowled at Dorety in passing.Captain Cullen did not want God to know that he was pleased with that wind.He had a conception of a malicious God, and believed in his secret soulthat if God knew it was a desirable wind, God would promptly efface it andsend a snorter from the west. So he walked softly before God, smotheringhis joy down under scowls and muttered curses, and, so, fooling God, forGod was the only thing in the universe of which Dan Cullen was afraid.All Saturday and Saturday night the Mary Rogers raced her westing.Persistently she logged her fourteen knots, so that by Sunday morning shehad covered three hundred and fifty miles. If the wind held, she wouldmake around. If it failed, and the snorter came from anywhere betweensouth-west and north, back the Mary Rogers would be hurled and be no betteroff than she had been seven weeks before. And on Sunday morning the windwas failing. The big sea was going down and running smooth. Both watcheswere on deck setting sail after sail as fast as the ship could stand it.And now Captain Cullen went around brazenly before God, smoking a bigcigar, smiling jubilantly, as if the failing wind delighted him, while downunderneath he was raging against God for taking the life out of the blessedwind. Make westing! So he would, if God would only leave him alone.Secretly, he pledged himself anew to the Powers of Darkness, if they wouldlet him make westing. He pledged himself so easily because he did notbelieve in the Powers of Darkness. He really believed only in God, thoughhe did not know it. And in his inverted theology God was really the Princeof Darkness. Captain Cullen was a devil-worshipper, but he called thedevil by another name, that was all.At midday, after calling eight bells, Captain Cullen ordered the royals on.The men went aloft faster than they had gone in weeks. Not alone were theynimble because of the westing, but a benignant sun was shining down andlimbering their stiff bodies. George Dorety stood aft, near CaptainCullen, less bundled in clothes than usual, soaking in the grateful warmthas he watched the scene. Swiftly and abruptly the incident occurred.There was a cry from the foreroyal-yard of "Man overboard!" Somebody threwa life-buoy over the side, and at the same instant the second mate's voicecame aft, ringing and peremptory--"Hard down your helm!"The man at the wheel never moved a spoke. He knew better, for Captain DanCullen was standing alongside of him. He wanted to move a spoke, to moveall the spokes, to grind the wheel down, hard down, for his comradedrowning in the sea. He glanced at Captain Dan Cullen, and Captain DanCullen gave no sign."Down! Hard down!" the second mate roared, as he sprang aft.But he ceased springing and commanding, and stood still, when he saw DanCullen by the wheel. And big Dan Cullen puffed at his cigar and saidnothing. Astern, and going astern fast, could be seen the sailor. He hadcaught the life-buoy and was clinging to it. Nobody spoke. Nobody moved.The men aloft clung to the royal yards and watched with terror-strickenfaces. And the Mary Rogers raced on, making her westing. A long, silentminute passed."Who was it?" Captain Cullen demanded."Mops, sir," eagerly answered the sailor at the wheel.Mops topped a wave astern and disappeared temporarily in the trough. Itwas a large wave, but it was no graybeard. A small boat could live easilyin such a sea, and in such a sea the Mary Rogers could easily come to. Butshe could not come to and make westing at the same time.For the first time in all his years, George Dorety was seeing a real dramaof life and death--a sordid little drama in which the scales balanced anunknown sailor named Mops against a few miles of longitude. At first hehad watched the man astern, but now he watched big Dan Cullen, hairy andblack, vested with power of life and death, smoking a cigar.Captain Dan Cullen smoked another long, silent minute. Then he removed thecigar from his mouth. He glanced aloft at the spars of the Mary Rogers,and overside at the sea."Sheet home the royals!" he cried.Fifteen minutes later they sat at table, in the cabin, with food servedbefore them. On one side of George Dorety sat Dan Cullen, the tiger, onthe other side, Joshua Higgins, the hyena. Nobody spoke. On deck the menwere sheeting home the skysails. George Dorety could hear their cries,while a persistent vision haunted him of a man called Mops, alive and well,clinging to a life-buoy miles astern in that lonely ocean. He glanced atCaptain Cullen, and experienced a feeling of nausea, for the man was eatinghis food with relish, almost bolting it."Captain Cullen," Dorety said, "you are in command of this ship, and it isnot proper for me to comment now upon what you do. But I wish to say onething. There is a hereafter, and yours will be a hot one."Captain Cullen did not even scowl. In his voice was regret as he said--"It was blowing a living gale. It was impossible to save the man.""He fell from the royal-yard," Dorety cried hotly. "You were setting theroyals at the time. Fifteen minutes afterward you were setting theskysails.""It was a living gale, wasn't it, Mr. Higgin?" Captain Cullen said, turningto the mate."If you'd brought her to, it'd have taken the sticks out of her," was themate's answer. "You did the proper thing, Captain Cullen. The man hadn'ta ghost of a show."George Dorety made no answer, and to the meal's end no one spoke. Afterthat, Dorety had his meals served in his state-room. Captain Cullenscowled at him no longer, though no speech was exchanged between them,while the Mary Rogers sped north toward warmer latitudes. At the end ofthe week, Dan Cullen cornered Dorety on deck."What are you going to do when we get to 'Frisco?" he demanded bluntly."I am going to swear out a warrant for your arrest," Dorety answeredquietly. "I am going to charge you with murder, and I am going to see youhanged for it.""You're almighty sure of yourself," Captain Cullen sneered, turning on hisheel.A second week passed, and one morning found George Dorety standing in thecoach-house companionway at the for'ard end of the long poop, taking hisfirst gaze around the deck. The Mary Rogers was reaching full-and-by, in astiff breeze. Every sail was set and drawing, including the staysails.Captain Cullen strolled for'ard along the poop. He strolled carelessly,glancing at the passenger out of the corner of his eye. Dorety was lookingthe other way, standing with head and shoulders outside the companionway,and only the back of his head was to be seen. Captain Cullen, with swifteye, embraced the mainstaysail-block and the head and estimated thedistance. He glanced about him. Nobody was looking. Aft, Joshua Higgins,pacing up and down, had just turned his back and was going the other way.Captain Cullen bent over suddenly and cast the staysail-sheet off from itspin. The heavy block hurtled through the air, smashing Dorety's head likean egg-shell and hurtling on and back and forth as the staysail whipped andslatted in the wind. Joshua Higgins turned around to see what had carriedaway, and met the full blast of the vilest portion of Captain Cullen'sprofanity."I made the sheet fast myself," whimpered the mate in the first lull, "withan extra turn to make sure. I remember it distinctly.""Made fast?" the Captain snarled back, for the benefit of the watch as itstruggled to capture the flying sail before it tore to ribbons. "Youcouldn't make your grandmother fast, you useless hell's scullion. If youmade that sheet fast with an extra turn, why in hell didn't it stay fast?That's what I want to know. Why in hell didn't it stay fast?"The mate whined inarticulately."Oh, shut up!" was the final word of Captain Cullen.Half an hour later he was as surprised as any when the body of GeorgeDorety was found inside the companionway on the floor. In the afternoon,alone in his room, he doctored up the log."Ordinary seaman, Karl Brun," he wrote, "lost overboard from foreroyal-yardin a gale of wind. Was running at the time, and for the safety of the shipdid not dare come up to the wind. Nor could a boat have lived in the seathat was running."On another page, he wrote"Had often warned Mr. Dorety about the danger he ran because of hiscarelessness on deck. I told him, once, that some day he would get hishead knocked off by a block. A carelessly fastened mainstaysail sheet wasthe cause of the accident, which was deeply to be regretted because Mr.Dorety was a favourite with all of us."Captain Dan Cullen read over his literary effort with admiration, blottedthe page, and closed the log. He lighted a cigar and stared before him.He felt the Mary Rogers lift, and heel, and surge along, and knew that shewas making nine knots. A smile of satisfaction slowly dawned on his blackand hairy face. Well, anyway, he had made his westing and fooled God.

Previous Authors：Love of Life Next Authors：Mauki