When he came up my gloves were frozen to the spokes an' the ice
clicked over my eyelids. Pairfect North Atlantic winter weather,
as I was sayin'.
"The gale blew out by night, but we lay in smotherin' cross-seas
that made the auld Kite chatter from stem to stern. I slowed to
thirty-four, I mind - no, thirty-seven. There was a long swell the
morn, an' the Grotkau was headin' into it west awa'.
"'She'll win to Rio yet, tail-shaft or no tail-shaft,' says Bell.
"'Last night shook her,' I said. 'She'll jar it off yet, mark my
word.'
"We were then, maybe, a hunder and fifty mile westsou'west o' Slyne
Head, by dead reckonin'. Next day we made a hunder an' thirty -
ye'll note we were not racin-boats - an' the day after a hunder an'
sixty-one, an' that made us, we'll say, Eighteen an' a bittock west,
an' maybe Fifty-one an' a bittock north, crossin' all the North
Atlantic liner lanes on the long slant, always in sight o' the
Grotkau, creepin' up by night and fallin' awa' by day. After the
gale it was cold weather wi' dark nights.
"I was in the engine-room on Friday night, just before the middle
watch, when Bell whustled down the tube: 'She's done it'; an' up I
came.
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