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CHAPTER II - THE INCONCEIVABLE AND MONSTROUS
"Spare no money," I said to Roscoe. "Let everything on the Snark be
of the best. And never mind decoration. Plain pine boards is good
enough finishing for me. But put the money into the construction.
Let the Snark be as staunch and strong as any boat afloat. Never
mind what it costs to make her staunch and strong; you see that she
is made staunch and strong, and I'll go on writing and earning the
money to pay for it."
And I did . . . as well as I could; for the Snark ate up money
faster than I could earn it. In fact, every little while I had to
borrow money with which to supplement my earnings. Now I borrowed
one thousand dollars, now I borrowed two thousand dollars, and now I
borrowed five thousand dollars. And all the time I went on working
every day and sinking the earnings in the venture. I worked Sundays
as well, and I took no holidays. But it was worth it. Every time I
thought of the Snark I knew she was worth it.
For know, gentle reader, the staunchness of the Snark. She is
forty-five feet long on the waterline. Her garboard strake is three
inches thick; her planking two and one-half inches thick; her deck-
planking two inches thick and in all her planking there are no
butts. I know, for I ordered that planking especially from Puget
Sound. Then the Snark has four water-tight compartments, which is
to say that her length is broken by three water-tight bulkheads.
Thus, no matter how large a leak the Snark may spring, Only one
compartment can fill with water. The other three compartments will
keep her afloat, anyway, and, besides, will enable us to mend the
leak. There is another virtue in these bulkheads. The last
compartment of all, in the very stern, contains six tanks that carry
over one thousand gallons of gasolene. Now gasolene is a very
dangerous article to carry in bulk on a small craft far out on the
wide ocean. But when the six tanks that do not leak are themselves
contained in a compartment hermetically sealed off from the rest of
the boat, the danger will be seen to be very small indeed.
The Snark is a sail-boat. She was built primarily to sail. But
incidentally, as an auxiliary, a seventy-horse-power engine was
installed. This is a good, strong engine. I ought to know. I paid
for it to come out all the way from New York City. Then, on deck,
above the engine, is a windlass. It is a magnificent affair. It
weighs several hundred pounds and takes up no end of deck-room. You
see, it is ridiculous to hoist up anchor by hand-power when there is
a seventy-horse-power engine on board. So we installed the
windlass, transmitting power to it from the engine by means of a
gear and castings specially made in a San Francisco foundry.
The Snark was made for comfort, and no expense was spared in this
regard. There is the bath-room, for instance, small and compact, it
is true, but containing all the conveniences of any bath-room upon
land. The bath-room is a beautiful dream of schemes and devices,
pumps, and levers, and sea-valves. Why, in the course of its
building, I used to lie awake nights thinking about that bath-room.
And next to the bathroom come the life-boat and the launch. They
are carried on deck, and they take up what little space might have
been left us for exercise. But then, they beat life insurance; and
the prudent man, even if he has built as staunch and strong a craft
as the Snark, will see to it that he has a good life-boat as well.
And ours is a good one. It is a dandy. It was stipulated to cost
one hundred and fifty dollars, and when I came to pay the bill, it
turned out to be three hundred and ninety-five dollars. That shows
how good a life-boat it is.
I could go on at great length relating the various virtues and
excellences of the Snark, but I refrain. I have bragged enough as
it is, and I have bragged to a purpose, as will be seen before my
tale is ended. And please remember its title, "The Inconceivable
and Monstrous." It was planned that the Snark should sail on
October 1, 1906. That she did not so sail was inconceivable and
monstrous. There was no valid reason for not sailing except that
she was not ready to sail, and there was no conceivable reason why
she was not ready. She was promised on November first, on November
fifteenth, on December first; and yet she was never ready. On
December first Charmian and I left the sweet, clean Sonoma country
and came down to live in the stifling city--but not for long, oh,
no, only for two weeks, for we would sail on December fifteenth.
And I guess we ought to know, for Roscoe said so, and it was on his
advice that we came to the city to stay two weeks. Alas, the two
weeks went by, four weeks went by, six weeks went by, eight weeks
went by, and we were farther away from sailing than ever. Explain
it? Who?--me? I can't. It is the one thing in all my life that I
have backed down on. There is no explaining it; if there were, I'd
do it. I, who am an artisan of speech, confess my inability to
explain why the Snark was not ready. As I have said, and as I must
repeat, it was inconceivable and monstrous.
The eight weeks became sixteen weeks, and then, one day, Roscoe
cheered us up by saying: "If we don't sail before April first, you
can use my head for a football."
Two weeks later he said, "I'm getting my head in training for that
match."
"Never mind," Charmian and I said to each other; "think of the
wonderful boat it is going to be when it is completed."
Whereat we would rehearse for our mutual encouragement the manifold
virtues and excellences of the Snark. Also, I would borrow more
money, and I would get down closer to my desk and write harder, and
I refused heroically to take a Sunday off and go out into the hills
with my friends. I was building a boat, and by the eternal it was
going to be a boat, and a boat spelled out all in capitals--B--O--A-
-T; and no matter what it cost I didn't care. So long as it was a
BOAT.
And, oh, there is one other excellence of the Snark, upon which I
must brag, namely, her bow. No sea could ever come over it. It
laughs at the sea, that bow does; it challenges the sea; it snorts
defiance at the sea. And withal it is a beautiful bow; the lines of
it are dreamlike; I doubt if ever a boat was blessed with a more
beautiful and at the same time a more capable bow. It was made to
punch storms. To touch that bow is to rest one's hand on the cosmic
nose of things. To look at it is to realize that expense cut no
figure where it was concerned. And every time our sailing was
delayed, or a new expense was tacked on, we thought of that
wonderful bow and were content.
The Snark is a small boat. When I figured seven thousand dollars as
her generous cost, I was both generous and correct. I have built
barns and houses, and I know the peculiar trait such things have of
running past their estimated cost. This knowledge was mine, was
already mine, when I estimated the probable cost of the building of
the Snark at seven thousand dollars. Well, she cost thirty
thousand. Now don't ask me, please. It is the truth. I signed the
cheques and I raised the money. Of course there is no explaining
it, inconceivable and monstrous is what it is, as you will agree, I
know, ere my tale is done.
Then there was the matter of delay. I dealt with forty-seven
different kinds of union men and with one hundred and fifteen
different firms. And not one union man and not one firm of all the
union men and all the firms ever delivered anything at the time
agreed upon, nor ever was on time for anything except pay-day and
bill-collection. Men pledged me their immortal souls that they
would deliver a certain thing on a certain date; as a rule, after
such pledging, they rarely exceeded being three months late in
delivery. And so it went, and Charmian and I consoled each other by
saying what a splendid boat the Snark was, so staunch and strong;
also, we would get into the small boat and row around the Snark, and
gloat over her unbelievably wonderful bow.
"Think," I would say to Charmian, "of a gale off the China coast,
and of the Snark hove to, that splendid bow of hers driving into the
storm. Not a drop will come over that bow. She'll be as dry as a
feather, and we'll be all below playing whist while the gale howls."
And Charmian would press my hand enthusiastically and exclaim:
"It's worth every bit of it--the delay, and expense, and worry, and
all the rest. Oh, what a truly wonderful boat!"
Whenever I looked at the bow of the Snark or thought of her water-
tight compartments, I was encouraged. Nobody else, however, was
encouraged. My friends began to make bets against the various
sailing dates of the Snark. Mr. Wiget, who was left behind in
charge of our Sonoma ranch was the first to cash his bet. He
collected on New Year's Day, 1907. After that the bets came fast
and furious. My friends surrounded me like a gang of harpies,
making bets against every sailing date I set. I was rash, and I was
stubborn. I bet, and I bet, and I continued to bet; and I paid them
all. Why, the women-kind of my friends grew so brave that those
among them who never bet before began to bet with me. And I paid
them, too.
"Never mind," said Charmian to me; "just think of that bow and of
being hove to on the China Seas."
"You see," I said to my friends, when I paid the latest bunch of
wagers, "neither trouble nor cash is being spared in making the
Snark the most seaworthy craft that ever sailed out through the
Golden Gate--that is what causes all the delay."
In the meantime editors and publishers with whom I had contracts
pestered me with demands for explanations. But how could I explain
to them, when I was unable to explain to myself, or when there was
nobody, not even Roscoe, to explain to me? The newspapers began to
laugh at me, and to publish rhymes anent the Snark's departure with
refrains like, "Not yet, but soon." And Charmian cheered me up by
reminding me of the bow, and I went to a banker and borrowed five
thousand more. There was one recompense for the delay, however. A
friend of mine, who happens to be a critic, wrote a roast of me, of
all I had done, and of all I ever was going to do; and he planned to
have it published after I was out on the ocean. I was still on
shore when it came out, and he has been busy explaining ever since.
And the time continued to go by. One thing was becoming apparent,
namely, that it was impossible to finish the Snark in San Francisco.
She had been so long in the building that she was beginning to break
down and wear out. In fact, she had reached the stage where she was
breaking down faster than she could be repaired. She had become a
joke. Nobody took her seriously; least of all the men who worked on
her. I said we would sail just as she was and finish building her
in Honolulu. Promptly she sprang a leak that had to be attended to
before we could sail. I started her for the boat-ways. Before she
got to them she was caught between two huge barges and received a
vigorous crushing. We got her on the ways, and, part way along, the
ways spread and dropped her through, stern-first, into the mud.
It was a pretty tangle, a job for wreckers, not boat-builders.
There are two high tides every twenty-four hours, and at every high
tide, night and day, for a week, there were two steam tugs pulling
and hauling on the Snark. There she was, stuck, fallen between the
ways and standing on her stern. Next, and while still in that
predicament, we started to use the gears and castings made in the
local foundry whereby power was conveyed from the engine to the
windlass. It was the first time we ever tried to use that windlass.
The castings had flaws; they shattered asunder, the gears ground
together, and the windlass was out of commission. Following upon
that, the seventy-horse-power engine went out of commission. This
engine came from New York; so did its bed-plate; there was a flaw in
the bed-plate; there were a lot of flaws in the bed-plate; and the
seventy-horse-power engine broke away from its shattered
foundations, reared up in the air, smashed all connections and
fastenings, and fell over on its side. And the Snark continued to
stick between the spread ways, and the two tugs continued to haul
vainly upon her.
"Never mind," said Charmian, "think of what a staunch, strong boat
she is."
"Yes," said I, "and of that beautiful bow."
So we took heart and went at it again. The ruined engine was lashed
down on its rotten foundation; the smashed castings and cogs of the
power transmission were taken down and stored away--all for the
purpose of taking them to Honolulu where repairs and new castings
could be made. Somewhere in the dim past the Snark had received on
the outside one coat of white paint. The intention of the colour
was still evident, however, when one got it in the right light. The
Snark had never received any paint on the inside. On the contrary,
she was coated inches thick with the grease and tobacco-juice of the
multitudinous mechanics who had toiled upon her. Never mind, we
said; the grease and filth could be planed off, and later, when we
fetched Honolulu, the Snark could be painted at the same time as she
was being rebuilt.
By main strength and sweat we dragged the Snark off from the wrecked
ways and laid her alongside the Oakland City Wharf. The drays
brought all the outfit from home, the books and blankets and
personal luggage. Along with this, everything else came on board in
a torrent of confusion--wood and coal, water and water-tanks,
vegetables, provisions, oil, the life-boat and the launch, all our
friends, all the friends of our friends and those who claimed to be
their friends, to say nothing of some of the friends of the friends
of the friends of our crew. Also there were reporters, and
photographers, and strangers, and cranks, and finally, and over all,
clouds of coal-dust from the wharf.
We were to sail Sunday at eleven, and Saturday afternoon had
arrived. The crowd on the wharf and the coal-dust were thicker than
ever. In one pocket I carried a cheque-book, a fountain-pen, a
dater, and a blotter; in another pocket I carried between one and
two thousand dollars in paper money and gold. I was ready for the
creditors, cash for the small ones and cheques for the large ones,
and was waiting only for Roscoe to arrive with the balances of the
accounts of the hundred and fifteen firms who had delayed me so many
months. And then -
And then the inconceivable and monstrous happened once more. Before
Roscoe could arrive there arrived another man. He was a United
States marshal. He tacked a notice on the Snark's brave mast so
that all on the wharf could read that the Snark had been libelled
for debt. The marshal left a little old man in charge of the Snark,
and himself went away. I had no longer any control of the Snark,
nor of her wonderful bow. The little old man was now her lord and
master, and I learned that I was paying him three dollars a day for
being lord and master. Also, I learned the name of the man who had
libelled the Snark. It was Sellers; the debt was two hundred and
thirty-two dollars; and the deed was no more than was to be expected
from the possessor of such a name. Sellers! Ye gods! Sellers!
But who under the sun was Sellers? I looked in my cheque-book and
saw that two weeks before I had made him out a cheque for five
hundred dollars. Other cheque-books showed me that during the many
months of the building of the Snark I had paid him several thousand
dollars. Then why in the name of common decency hadn't he tried to
collect his miserable little balance instead of libelling the Snark?
I thrust my hands into my pockets, and in one pocket encountered the
cheque-hook and the dater and the pen, and in the other pocket the
gold money and the paper money. There was the wherewithal to settle
his pitiful account a few score of times and over--why hadn't he
given me a chance? There was no explanation; it was merely the
inconceivable and monstrous.
To make the matter worse, the Snark had been libelled late Saturday
afternoon; and though I sent lawyers and agents all over Oakland and
San Francisco, neither United States judge, nor United States
marshal, nor Mr. Sellers, nor Mr. Sellers' attorney, nor anybody
could be found. They were all out of town for the weekend. And so
the Snark did not sail Sunday morning at eleven. The little old man
was still in charge, and he said no. And Charmian and I walked out
on an opposite wharf and took consolation in the Snark's wonderful
bow and thought of all the gales and typhoons it would proudly
punch.
"A bourgeois trick," I said to Charmian, speaking of Mr. Sellers and
his libel; "a petty trader's panic. But never mind; our troubles
will cease when once we are away from this and out on the wide
ocean."
And in the end we sailed away, on Tuesday morning, April 23, 1907.
We started rather lame, I confess. We had to hoist anchor by hand,
because the power transmission was a wreck. Also, what remained of
our seventy-horse-power engine was lashed down for ballast on the
bottom of the Snark. But what of such things? They could be fixed
in Honolulu, and in the meantime think of the magnificent rest of
the boat! It is true, the engine in the launch wouldn't run, and
the life-boat leaked like a sieve; but then they weren't the Snark;
they were mere appurtenances. The things that counted were the
water-tight bulkheads, the solid planking without butts, the bath-
room devices--they were the Snark. And then there was, greatest of
all, that noble, wind-punching bow.
We sailed out through the Golden Gate and set our course south
toward that part of the Pacific where we could hope to pick up with
the north-east trades. And right away things began to happen. I
had calculated that youth was the stuff for a voyage like that of
the Snark, and I had taken three youths--the engineer, the cook, and
the cabin-boy. My calculation was only two-thirds OFF; I had
forgotten to calculate on seasick youth, and I had two of them, the
cook and the cabin boy. They immediately took to their bunks, and
that was the end of their usefulness for a week to come. It will be
understood, from the foregoing, that we did not have the hot meals
we might have had, nor were things kept clean and orderly down
below. But it did not matter very much anyway, for we quickly
discovered that our box of oranges had at some time been frozen;
that our box of apples was mushy and spoiling; that the crate of
cabbages, spoiled before it was ever delivered to us, had to go
overboard instanter; that kerosene had been spilled on the carrots,
and that the turnips were woody and the beets rotten, while the
kindling was dead wood that wouldn't burn, and the coal, delivered
in rotten potato-sacks, had spilled all over the deck and was
washing through the scuppers.
But what did it matter? Such things were mere accessories. There
was the boat--she was all right, wasn't she? I strolled along the
deck and in one minute counted fourteen butts in the beautiful
planking ordered specially from Puget Sound in order that there
should be no butts in it. Also, that deck leaked, and it leaked
badly. It drowned Roscoe out of his bunk and ruined the tools in
the engine-room, to say nothing of the provisions it ruined in the
galley. Also, the sides of the Snark leaked, and the bottom leaked,
and we had to pump her every day to keep her afloat. The floor of
the galley is a couple of feet above the inside bottom of the Snark;
and yet I have stood on the floor of the galley, trying to snatch a
cold bite, and been wet to the knees by the water churning around
inside four hours after the last pumping.
Then those magnificent water-tight compartments that cost so much
time and money--well, they weren't water-tight after all. The water
moved free as the air from one compartment to another; furthermore,
a strong smell of gasolene from the after compartment leads me to
suspect that some one or more of the half-dozen tanks there stored
have sprung a leak. The tanks leak, and they are not hermetically
sealed in their compartment. Then there was the bath-room with its
pumps and levers and sea-valves--it went out of commission inside
the first twenty hours. Powerful iron levers broke off short in
one's hand when one tried to pump with them. The bathroom was the
swiftest wreck of any portion of the Snark.
And the iron-work on the Snark, no matter what its source, proved to
be mush. For instance, the bed-plate of the engine came from New
York, and it was mush; so were the casting and gears for the
windlass that came from San Francisco. And finally, there was the
wrought iron used in the rigging, that carried away in all
directions when the first strains were put upon it. Wrought iron,
mind you, and it snapped like macaroni.
A gooseneck on the gaff of the mainsail broke short off. We
replaced it with the gooseneck from the gaff of the storm trysail,
and the second gooseneck broke short off inside fifteen minutes of
use, and, mind you, it had been taken from the gaff of the storm
trysail, upon which we would have depended in time of storm. At the
present moment the Snark trails her mainsail like a broken wing, the
gooseneck being replaced by a rough lashing. We'll see if we can
get honest iron in Honolulu.
Man had betrayed us and sent us to sea in a sieve, but the Lord must
have loved us, for we had calm weather in which to learn that we
must pump every day in order to keep afloat, and that more trust
could be placed in a wooden toothpick than in the most massive piece
of iron to be found aboard. As the staunchness and the strength of
the Snark went glimmering, Charmian and I pinned our faith more and
more to the Snark's wonderful bow. There was nothing else left to
pin to. It was all inconceivable and monstrous, we knew, but that
bow, at least, was rational. And then, one evening, we started to
heave to.
How shall I describe it? First of all, for the benefit of the tyro,
let me explain that heaving to is that sea manoeuvre which, by means
of short and balanced canvas, compels a vessel to ride bow-on to
wind and sea. When the wind is too strong, or the sea is too high,
a vessel of the size of the Snark can heave to with ease, whereupon
there is no more work to do on deck. Nobody needs to steer. The
lookout is superfluous. All hands can go below and sleep or play
whist.
Well, it was blowing half of a small summer gale, when I told Roscoe
we'd heave to. Night was coming on. I had been steering nearly all
day, and all hands on deck (Roscoe and Bert and Charmian) were
tired, while all hands below were seasick. It happened that we had
already put two reefs in the big mainsail. The flying-jib and the
jib were taken in, and a reef put in the fore-staysail. The mizzen
was also taken in. About this time the flying jib-boom buried
itself in a sea and broke short off. I started to put the wheel
down in order to heave to. The Snark at the moment was rolling in
the trough. She continued rolling in the trough. I put the spokes
down harder and harder. She never budged from the trough. (The
trough, gentle reader, is the most dangerous position all in which
to lay a vessel.) I put the wheel hard down, and still the Snark
rolled in the trough. Eight points was the nearest I could get her
to the wind. I had Roscoe and Bert come in on the main-sheet. The
Snark rolled on in the trough, now putting her rail under on one
side and now under on the other side.
Again the inconceivable and monstrous was showing its grizzly head.
It was grotesque, impossible. I refused to believe it. Under
double-reefed mainsail and single-reefed staysail the Snark refused
to heave to. We flattened the mainsail down. It did not alter the
Snark's course a tenth of a degree. We slacked the mainsail off
with no more result. We set a storm trysail on the mizzen, and took
in the mainsail. No change. The Snark roiled on in the trough.
That beautiful bow of hers refused to come up and face the wind.
Next we took in the reefed staysail. Thus, the only bit of canvas
left on her was the storm trysail on the mizzen. If anything would
bring her bow up to the wind, that would. Maybe you won't believe
me when I say it failed, but I do say it failed. And I say it
failed because I saw it fail, and not because I believe it failed.
I don't believe it did fail. It is unbelievable, and I am not
telling you what I believe; I am telling you what I saw.
Now, gentle reader, what would you do if you were on a small boat,
rolling in the trough of the sea, a trysail on that small boat's
stern that was unable to swing the bow up into the wind? Get out
the sea-anchor. It's just what we did. We had a patent one, made
to order and warranted not to dive. Imagine a hoop of steel that
serves to keep open the mouth of a large, conical, canvas bag, and
you have a sea-anchor. Well, we made a line fast to the sea-anchor
and to the bow of the Snark, and then dropped the sea-anchor
overboard. It promptly dived. We had a tripping line on it, so we
tripped the sea-anchor and hauled it in. We attached a big timber
as a float, and dropped the sea-anchor over again. This time it
floated. The line to the bow grew taut. The trysail on the mizzen
tended to swing the bow into the wind, but, in spite of this
tendency, the Snark calmly took that sea-anchor in her teeth, and
went on ahead, dragging it after her, still in the trough of the
sea. And there you are. We even took in the trysail, hoisted the
full mizzen in its place, and hauled the full mizzen down flat, and
the Snark wallowed in the trough and dragged the sea-anchor behind
her. Don't believe me. I don't believe it myself. I am merely
telling you what I saw.
Now I leave it to you. Who ever heard of a sailing-boat that
wouldn't heave to?--that wouldn't heave to with a sea-anchor to help
it? Out of my brief experience with boats I know I never did. And
I stood on deck and looked on the naked face of the inconceivable
and monstrous--the Snark that wouldn't heave to. A stormy night
with broken moonlight had come on. There was a splash of wet in the
air, and up to windward there was a promise of rain-squalls; and
then there was the trough of the sea, cold and cruel in the
moonlight, in which the Snark complacently rolled. And then we took
in the sea-anchor and the mizzen, hoisted the reefed staysail, ran
the Snark off before it, and went below--not to the hot meal that
should have awaited us, but to skate across the slush and slime on
the cabin floor, where cook and cabin-boy lay like dead men in their
bunks, and to lie down in our own bunks, with our clothes on ready
for a call, and to listen to the bilge-water spouting knee-high on
the galley floor.
In the Bohemian Club of San Francisco there are some crack sailors.
I know, because I heard them pass judgment on the Snark during the
process of her building. They found only one vital thing the matter
with her, and on this they were all agreed, namely, that she could
not run. She was all right in every particular, they said, except
that I'd never be able to run her before it in a stiff wind and sea.
"Her lines," they explained enigmatically, "it is the fault of her
lines. She simply cannot be made to run, that is all." Well, I
wish I'd only had those crack sailors of the Bohemian Club on board
the Snark the other night for them to see for themselves their one,
vital, unanimous judgment absolutely reversed. Run? It is the one
thing the Snark does to perfection. Run? She ran with a sea-anchor
fast for'ard and a full mizzen flattened down aft. Run? At the
present moment, as I write this, we are bowling along before it, at
a six-knot clip, in the north-east trades. Quite a tidy bit of sea
is running. There is nobody at the wheel, the wheel is not even
lashed and is set over a half-spoke weather helm. To be precise,
the wind is north-east; the Snark's mizzen is furled, her mainsail
is over to starboard, her head-sheets are hauled flat: and the
Snark's course is south-south-west. And yet there are men who have
sailed the seas for forty years and who hold that no boat can run
before it without being steered. They'll call me a liar when they
read this; it's what they called Captain Slocum when he said the
same of his Spray.
As regards the future of the Snark I'm all at sea. I don't know.
If I had the money or the credit, I'd build another Snark that WOULD
heave to. But I am at the end of my resources. I've got to put up
with the present Snark or quit--and I can't quit. So I guess I'll
have to try to get along with heaving the Snark to stern first. I
am waiting for the next gale to see how it will work. I think it
can be done. It all depends on how her stern takes the seas. And
who knows but that some wild morning on the China Sea, some gray-
beard skipper will stare, rub his incredulous eyes and stare again,
at the spectacle of a weird, small craft very much like the Snark,
hove to stern-first and riding out the gale?
P.S. On my return to California after the voyage, I learned that
the Snark was forty-three feet on the water-line instead of forty-
five. This was due to the fact that the builder was not on speaking
terms with the tape-line or two-foot rule.
Content of CHAPTER II - THE INCONCEIVABLE AND MONSTROUS [Jack London's book: The Cruise of the Snark]
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