Jump Ship to Freedom by James Lincoln Collier Read Free Book Online Page A

the water. There was no way anybody could save you in those waves: you wouldn’t last more than a couple of minutes.
    Being smallest, me and Birdsey was up first, headed right to the top of the foremast to take in the top gallant. We started up the rigging side by side, one on each side of the mast, the way we always done it. It was like trying to mount a bucking horse. First the ship would roll to starboard. The mast would tip way over to that side, till it was laying way out over the ocean, with us hanging in the rigging underneath it. Then the ship would rock back. We’d swing up and over, getting slammed around a good bit when it came over the top. Then it would swing all the way down to port, leaving us to hang under the rigging on the other side. Just holding on was hard enough, saying nothing of furling the sail. And all the while down on the deck Captain Ivers was hollering through the wind, “Get moving, get moving,” and cursing us out generally. We climbed up and up until we reached the top gallant.
    We was now more than fifty feet off the deck, almost at the top of the mast. All around us, as far as I could see out through the dark clouds and the rain, the sea was heaving itself up and down in great hunks, with spray blowing off the tops of the waves in long streamers. Up there, when the ship rocked we seemed to be racing straight down at the boiling water. We wasn’t over the ship then: we was hanging way out over the sea, which slashed about below us like it was trying to snatch us out of the rigging and carry us off.
    But we wasn’t up there just to hang on. Down below, the men were heaving on the lines to pull the top gallant up. Me and Birdsey was on each side of the mast, our bare feet in the rope slung underneath the yard. The rough canvas sail was wet through and heavy as a sheet of lead, except that it was flapping in the wind. We grabbed at it, me and Birdsey, each with one hand, while we hung on to the spar with the other. Slowly we pulled it up against the yard and began tying it up.
    Then suddenly the wind gusted. The sail busted out from our grip with a great slap and began to flap wildly like the wings of a huge bird. Me and Birdsey looked at each other. Down on the deck the captain was hollering, but we couldn’t make out a bit of what he was saying. We grabbed for the sail, but flapping that way, it was like trying to grab hold of a kicking mule. It kept belting us in the arms and faces, the rough canvas scratching like sandpaper on our skin. My hands were tired and cramped, and my legs getting weak from the strain. It wasn’t going to take much for that flapping sail to knock me off my perch.
    Then came one of them out-of-step waves. The ship stopped and shuddered. The sail kicked out with a tremendous bang and split across the middle parallel to the yard. The loose ends whipped against my face and chest, and I felt a sting across my cheek sharper than any lash I’d ever got from Captain Ivers. Blood began to drip onto my shirt. We grabbed at the flapping sail and caught enough of it to tie the top half to the yard. My legs and arms were shaking and my face was bleeding and my hands was scraped from the rough canvas. I was soaking wet from the saltwater spray blowing over us. The salt stung in the cuts and scrapes, too. But we wasn’t finished, not by a long shot. We had to drop down fifteen feet and do the same thing all over again with the fore topsail.
    Oh, it was terrible. But we got the job done. In good weather you ought to be able to furl a sail in two or three minutes, and take in all the canvas on the ship in fifteen. But in the storm it took us most of an hour to do it. We left up the main staysail and main topsail. You can’t just let a ship drift in a storm; it’s liable to get caught the wrong way to a wave and capsize. You’ve got to be able to steer it up and over the waves. You can’t steer a ship if it isn’t moving, and