Meanwhile the hands of the watch had been employed on ropes and sails as the wind made necessary, and, when running under steam as well as sail, hoisting ashes up the two shoots from the ash-pits of the furnaces to the deck, whence they went into the ditch.

It is eight bells (8 o’clock) and the two stewards are hurrying along the decks, hoping to get the breakfast safely from galley to wardroom.  A few naked officers are pouring sea-water over their heads on deck, for we are under sail alone and there is no steam to work the hose.  The watch keepers and their snotties of the night before are tumbling out of their bunks, and a great noise of conversation is coming from the wardroom, among which some such remarks as:  “Give the jam a wind, Marie”; “After you with the coffee”; “Push along the butter” are frequent.  There are few cobwebs that have not been blown away by breakfast-time.

Rennick is busy breakfasting preparatory to relieving Campbell on the bridge.  Meanwhile, the hourly and four-hourly ship’s log is being made up—­force of the wind, state of the sea, height of the barometer, and all the details which a log has to carry—­including a reading of the distance run as shown by the patent log line—­(many is the time I have forgotten to take it just at the hour and have put down what I thought it ought to be, and not what it was).

The morning watch is finished.

Suddenly there is a yell from somewhere amidships—­“STEADY”—­a stranger might have thought there was something wrong, but it is a familiar sound, answered by a “STEADY IT IS, Sir,” from the man at the wheel, and an anything but respectful, “One—­two—­three—­STEADY,” from everybody having breakfast.  It is Pennell who has caused this uproar.  And the origin is as follows: 

Pennell is the navigator, and the standard compass, owing to its remoteness from iron in this position, is placed on the top of the ice-house.  The steersman, however, steers by a binnacle compass placed aft in front of his wheel.  But these two compasses for various reasons do not read alike at a given moment, while the standard is the truer of the two.

At intervals, then, Pennell or the officer of the watch orders the steersman to “Stand by for a steady,” and goes up to the standard compass, and watches the needle.  Suppose the course laid down is S. 40 E. A liner would steer almost true to this course unless there was a big wind or sea.  But not so the old Terra Nova.  Even with a good steersman the needle swings a good many degrees either side of the S. 40 E. But as it steadies momentarily on the exact course Pennell shouts his “Steady,” the steersman reads just where the needle is pointing on the compass card before him, say S. 47 E., and knows that this is the course which is to be steered by the binnacle compass.

Pennell’s yells were so frequent and ear-piercing that he became famous for them, and many times in working on the ropes in rough seas and big winds, we have been cheered by this unmusical noise over our heads.