One night, while we were playing cards in the dogwatch, something struck the “Zangwahee” like a tremendous hammer-blow. We were carrying a lot of canvas at the time. The “Zangwahee” heeled over and tumbled us in a heap on the port side of the forecastle. The boatswain’s dog, old Moses, a huge, fluffy fellow with fine brown eyes that were full of wisdom, rushed out on deck and barked at the stars. Moses was always alert, being the first to obey the mate’s orders. In a moment we had followed Moses on deck in a regular stampede. The mate was yelling and swearing like a madman.
“Where the blazing h—— are ye, mon? Take in sail; she’ll have the masts ripped out of her!” (The mate seldom gave direct orders to those old sailormen who had run the Easter down and doubled Cape Horn before he was at his mother’s breast!)
That typhoon had struck us without the slightest warning. The “Zangwahee” was already diving, as I clambered aloft with the rest of the crew. The seas, calm as a sheet of glass when the sun went down, were heaving angrily as the wind howled across the night. It was a marvellous and grand sight, for there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. The stars were flickering as though the typhoon’s wild breath reached to the remote outer spaces of infinity. As I crawled along the foot-ropes aloft, I looked down on the “Zangwahee’s” swaying decks and distinctly saw old Moses barking as he stared aloft, his hairy nose sniffing the stars. I looked seaward and saw the ramping seas rolling away to the dim night skylines like travelling mountains. As we fisted the canvas, the old skipper roared his orders from the poop; his beard blew upward and went over his shoulders as the wind struck him. Of course, up there aloft we got the full force of the blast. I clung on like grim death. We had to keep our faces to leeward, otherwise it were impossible to breathe at all, as the wind struck us like a solid mass. I cursed that typhoon. I hadn’t any diplomas for ability in going aloft on dark nights while typhoons blew. Besides, I had a swollen face through toothache. I felt as though I was being tossed about in space, lost in an infinity of wind and darkness, with only the stars around me.
“‘Old ’ard! yer son of a gun!” roared an old salt, as I clutched the canvas with one hand and grabbed his beard with the other when the “Zangwahee” nearly turned turtle. It was Olwyn Saga, and for a moment I had thought that a kind, vast white beard had been thrust out of space, until I heard the mouth give a muffled oath. Only one who has been aloft on a sailing-ship in really bad weather knows the sensation one feels when one hangs on to the taut ropes of a stick that seems to wobble in space, a stick with a dozen singing sailors clinging to it, using frightful oaths as they apparently grab the stars and curse, when they should be thinking of the supreme possibility of suddenly appearing before their Maker.