Just about now, too, there was a certain amount of merriment in the ship owing to Carr being required to improve the accommodation below. It takes very little to arouse a laugh on shipboard, where stern hard work is the prevailing note; and we were grateful to our amateur carpenter for permitting us to laugh at his well-meant efforts, which, though rough and crude, suited the conditions. Despite the alterations that had been made at Rio, the down-below accommodation was still limited, and every man had to stow himself away in as small a space as was compatible with continued existence. If in a future state I am ever destined to become a sardine, I shall know that I’ve had good training in the art of close stowage!
As the wind was coming away fair and with a force that promised added speed, the foresail and staysail were taken in and the square-sail set. The promise was fulfilled, and now we romped along in an inspiring manner through a quickening sea that slapped happy little wavelets against our quarter and threw occasional wisps of spindrift aboard. In the main the day was somewhat misty, and there was a heavy swell running as though promising an increase of the wind—what Kipling calls “The high-running swell before storm, grey, formless, enormous, and growing.” It’s astonishing to me how Kipling, himself no sailor, understands the sea so well! He seems to have got right down to the very inwardness of open water, and if he’d been a trained sailor he couldn’t understand the sea’s mysteries and wonderments better than he does.
The day of Christmas Eve broke to show us a moderate sea and a refreshing west-south-west wind. During the entire day this breeze increased, with frequent squalls and a gloomy, lowering sky, and the wiseacres amongst us prognosticated bad weather. Of course it is always safest to prophesy bad weather at sea, because you naturally make up your mind that it is coming and prepare yourself for any emergency; and then, if it doesn’t eventuate, you thank your lucky stars for continued good times. But on this occasion the portents proved correct: before night a big sea was running, and the wind, from menacing whistle, increased to that deep thunderous note of striving which indicates the nearness of a pukka storm. We began to ship water—nothing to worry about, but still enough to drown out the dynamo, as a result of which catastrophe our lights were extinguished and we were compelled to resort to the oil-lamps by way of illumination.