It is merely to point out that ships are not manned by collegers, but by boys and men who have so great a passion for the life that they keep on with it in spite of all the hardships and privations. It is a passion which for good or ill is born in many boys, even though they live far inland and have no immediate contact with the sea. When they grow up in a shipping community, the craving becomes irresistible. The sea calls and will not be denied.
In one sense this story of young Enoch Thacher’s voyage around the Horn is not fiction at all. The test of good fiction is that it shall produce the impression of truth and this test Mr. Sperry’s story of Enoch Thacher’s adventures passes triumphantly. The youngest boy who has learned to read will have his nose in this book until he has finished it or his elders have taken it away from him to read themselves. There is a most wholesome atmosphere of realism and truth in this book. Many sea writers are out, not to tell the truth about seafaring, but to make sensational disclosures. As one who comes from a seafaring and shipbuilding family, the legends of sailing ships have always appeared to me heavily loaded with bunkum. The notion that every captain was a hard-boiled autocrat and every first mate a bloodthirsty lunatic has always been a shade too fantastical for one whose relatives since 1840 have been masters and mates in sail and steam. That going to sea was no picnic in the days of the windships is doubtless true, but the life appealed to those who had a bent that way, and mates who crippled and murdered their men were in a minority at all times. They received more publicity than decent officers, and their deeds have always appealed to newspapermen and writers of sea stories as better adapted to sensational tales.
This sort of exaggeration is excellently avoided in Mr. Sperry’s dashing tale. Everyone on board, from Captain Josiah Perkins Creesy to the boys in the half deck, is a genuine and authentic character. The action that goes on in the narrative is entirely rational and free from the sensational savagery which has been so popular in so many sea stories. As an example, who does not know the sea yarn in which the trembling, green boy is ordered aloft as soon as he is on board? How often have we read of the bucko mate whose idea of efficiency and skill is to lay out several of his men with quite incomprehensible brutality? Mr. Sperry’s story is quite different. It is all the more exciting because words and actions ring true. The autocratic captain is there, but he is a human being. Even the bucko mate is there, but what happens to him must be read in the book. The story is full of carefully concealed ingenuity and inventiveness. The conversation between the captain and the mate while arguing over the handling of the ship is one of the most convincing pieces of realism I have read during a number of years of reading sea literature. The fight between Enoch Thacher and the sea lawyer, Jeeter Sneed, is first-rate. Jeeter, a common type in sea fiction, and usually so overdrawn as to be incredible, is well done here. The mutiny, one of the most easily bungled scenes in any book of this kind, is the real thing. Any boy who does not revel in the Neptune initiations which take place while Flying Cloud is crossing the Equator, must be hard to please.
Those days, of course, are gone, never to return. The boy of today who goes to sea has another tale to tell. He does not have to go aloft to fist canvas in a gale nor does he ever see Cape Stiff in winter. It would be foolish to imagine, however, that he has to be any less courageous or ready-witted. At any moment he may be tested. The sea will never be tamed or civilized. The larger and more complex the vessel the more severe the demands upon the personnel. Behind the most ingenious mechanical inventions there must ever be a man’s courage, integrity, and presence of mind. All the fine qualities of the human mind and character which are depicted in this tale of Flying Cloud’s maiden voyage around the Horn are needed today. Boys with the right stuff in them will take Enoch to their hearts and treasure with pride and affection the memory of that lovely ship.
CONTENTS
I. I MEET DONALD MCKAY—AND SWEAR A VOW
III. THE UNFORESEEN HAPPENS—I GO TO SEA
IV. I MAKE THREE FRIENDS—AND GET MY SEA LEGS
V. MY FIRST FIGHT—AND AN ENEMY MADE
VI. A PASSPORT FROM NEPTUNE—AND TROUBLE IN THE FOC’SLE
VII. YARNS SPUN IN THE SECOND DOGWATCH—WE HEAR TELL OF THE CORPOSANT
VIII. THE Flying Cloud IN THE ROARING FORTIES—WE SEE THE CORPOSANT—TRAGEDY OFF CAPE HORN
IX. THE PACIFIC SLANT—WHALES—I REMEMBER A VOW
X. LAND HO! A NUGGET OF GOLD—A SHIP CLEARS FOR CHINA
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Every hour that I was not in school, found me down at the wharves
Messina Clarke was a small man but tough
Turning back to me, Donald McKay demanded, “An’ what mak’s ye come to me for a position?”
Here I felt at home and here I had passed the happiest hours of my life
The Flying Cloud … lay at the water’s edge
By twelve noon I went aboard my ship
Captain Creesy saw the men coming and stopped in his stride
Up the narrowing web of the shrouds Sneed fled with the mate at his heels
Sometimes of an early evening, Brick and I … would climb hand over hand to the upper rigging
We had picked up the southeast trades
