He was not afraid for his skin, not afraid for himself: but presently his climbing body, now half-way up the shrouds, let him know that for its own part it was in a state of rapidly increasing terror Forty feet is no very great height, but it seems far more lofty, aerial and precarious when there
is nothing but an insubstantial yielding ladder of moving ropes underfoot, and when Stephen was three parts of the way up cries of ‘Belay’ on deck showed that the staysails were set and their sheets hauled aft. They filled, and the Sophie heeled over another strake or two, this coincided with her leeward roll, and the rail passed slowly under Stephen’s downward gaze, to be followed by the sea -a wide expanse of glittering water, very far below, and directly underneath His grip on the ratlines tightened with cataleptic strength and his upward progress ceased he remained there spreadeagled, while the varying forces of gravity, centrifugal motion, irrational panic and reasonable
dread acted upon his motionless, tight-cramped person, now pressing him forward so that the checkered pattern of the shrouds and their crossing ratlines were imprinted on his front, and now plucking him backwards so that he bellied out like a shirt hung up to dry.
A form slid down the backstay to the left of him: hands closed gently round his ankles, and Mowett’s cheerful young voice said, ‘Now, sir, on the roll. Clap on to the shrouds -the uprights – and look upwards. Here we go.’ His right foot was firmly moved up to the next ratline, his left followed it; and after one more hideous swinging backward lunge in which he closed his cyes and stopped breathing, the lubber’s hole received its second visitor of the day. Mowett had darted round by the futtock-shrouds and was there in the top to haul him through.
‘This is the maintop, sir,’ said Mowett, affecting not to notice Stephen’s haggard look. ‘The other one over there is the foretop, of course.’
‘I am very sensible of your kindness in helping me up,’ said Stephen. ‘Thank you.’
‘Oh, sir,’ cried Mowett, ‘I beg. . . And that’s the mainstays’l they just set, below us. And that’s the forestays’l for’ard: you’ll never see one, but on a man-of-war.’
‘Those triangles? Why are they called staysails?’ asked Stephen, speaking somewhat at random.
‘Why, sir, because they are rigged on the stays, slide along them like curtains by those rings: we call ’em banks, at sea. We used to have grommets, but we rigged banks when we were laying off Cadiz last year, and they answer much better. The stays are those thick ropes that run sloping down, straight for’ard.’
‘And their function is to extend these sails: I see.’
‘Well, sir, they do extend them, to be sure. But what they are really for is to hold up the masts – to stay them for’ard. To prevent them falling backwards when she pitches.’
‘The masts need support, then?’ asked Stephen, stepping cautiously across the platform and patting the squared top
of the lower mast and the rounded foot of the topmast, two stout parallel columns – close on three feet of wood
between them, counting the gap. ‘I should scarcely have
thought it.’
‘Lord, sir, they’d roll themselves overboard, else. The shrouds support them sideways, and the backstays – these here, sir – backwards.’
‘I see. I see. Tell me,’ said Stephen, to keep the young man talking at any cost, ‘tell me, what is the purpose of this platform, and why is the mast doubled at this point? And what is this hammer for?’
‘The top, sir? Why, apart from the rigging and getting things up, it comes in handy for the small-arms men in a close action: they can fire down on the enemy’s deck and toss stink-pots and grenadoes. And then these futtock-plates at the rim here hold the dead-eyes for the topmast shrouds
– the top gives a wide base so that the shrouds have a purchase the top is a little over ten foot wide It is the same thing up above There are the cross-trees, and they spread the
topgallant shrouds You see them, sir? Up there, where the look-out is perched, beyond the topsail yard’
‘You could not explain this maze of ropes and wood and canvas without using sea-terms, I suppose No, it would not be possible’
‘Using no sea-terms? I should be puzzled to do that, sir, but I will try, if you wish it’
‘No, for it is by those names alone that they are known, in nearly every case, I imagine’
The Sophie’s tops were furnished with iron stanchions for the hammock-netting that protected their occupants in battle Stephen sat between two of them, with an arm round each and his legs dangling, he found comfort in this feeling of being firmly anchored to metal, with solid wood under his buttocks The sun was well up in the sky by now and it threw a brilliant pattern of light and sharp shadow over the white deck below – geometrical lines and curves broken only by the formless mass of the square mainsail that the sailmaker and his men had spread
over the fo’c’sle. ‘Suppose we were to take that mast,’ he said, nodding forward, for Mowett seemed to be afraid of talking too much – afraid of boring and instructing beyond his station, ‘and suppose you were to name the principal objects from the bottom to the top.,
‘It is the foremast, sir. The bottom we call the lower mast, or just the foremast; it is forty-nine feet long, and it is stepped on the kelson. It is supported by shrouds on either side –
three pair of a side – and it is stayed for’ard by the forestay running down to the bowsprit: and the other rope running parallel with the forestay is the preventer-stay, in case it breaks. Then, about a third of the way up the foremast, you see the collar of the mainstay: the mainstay goes from just under here and supports the mainmast below us.’
‘So that is a mainstay,’ said Stephen, looking at it vaguely. ‘I have often heard them mentioned. A stout-looking rope, indeed.’
‘Ten-inch, sir,’ said Mowett proudly. ‘And the preventerstay is seven. Then comes the forecourse yard, but perhaps I had best finish the masts before I go on to the yards. You see the foretop, the same kind of thing as we are on now? It lies on the trestletrees and crosstrees about five parts of the way up the foremast: and so the remaining length of lower mast runs double with the topmast, just as these two do here. The topmast, do you see, is that second length going upwards, the thinner piece that rises above the top. We sway it up from below and fix it to the lower mast, rather like a marine clapping a bayonet on to his musket: it comes up through the trestletrees, and when it is high enough, so that the hole in the bottom of it is clear, we ram a fid through, banging it home with the top-maul, which is this hammer you were asking about, and we sing out “Launch ho!” and
‘the explanation ran eagerly on.
‘Castlereagh hanging at the one masthead and. Fitzgibbon at the other,’ thought Stephen, but with only the weariest gleam of spirit.
and it’s stayed for’ard to the bowsprit again: you can just see a corner of the foretopmast stays’l if you crane over this way.’
His voice reached Stephen as a pleasant background against which he tried to arrange his thoughts. Then Stephen was aware of an expectant pause: the words
‘foretopmast’ and ‘crane over’ had preceded it.
‘Just so,’ he said. ‘And how long might that topmast be?’
‘Thirty-one feet, sir, the same as this one here. Now, just above the foretop you see the collar of the maintopmast stay, which supports this topmast just above us. Then come the topmast trestletrees and crosstrees, where the other lookout is stationed; and then the topgallantmast. It is swayed up
and held the same way as the topmast, only naturally its shrouds are slighter; and it is stayed for’ard to the jib-boom do you see, the spar that runs out beyond the bowsprit’ The bowsprit’s topmast, as it were. It is twenty-three feet six inches long The topgallantmast, I mean, not the jib-boom That is twenty-four’
‘It is a pleasure to hear a man who thoroughly understands his profession. You are very exact, sir.’
‘Oh, I hope the captains will say the same, sir,’ cried Mowett. ‘When next we put into Gibraltar I am to go for my lieutenant’s examination again. Three senior captains sit upon you; and last time a very devilish captain asked me
how many fathoms I should need for the main crowfoot, and how long the euphroe was. I could tell him now: it is fifty fathoms of three-quarter-inch line, though you would never credit it, and the euphroe is fourteen inches. I believe I could tell him anything that can even be attempted to be