I
NONE OF THEM KNEW the color of the sky. Their eyes
glanced level, and were fastened upon the waves that swept toward
them. These waves were of the hue of slate, save for the tops,
which were of foaming white, and all of the men knew the colors of
the sea. The horizon narrowed and widened, and dipped and rose, and
at all times its edge was jagged with waves that seemed thrust up
in points like rocks.
Many a man ought to have a bathtub larger than the
boat which here rode upon the sea. These waves were most wrongfully
and barbarously abrupt and tall, and each froth-top was a problem
in small-boat navigation.
The cook squatted in the bottom, and looked with
both eyes at the six inches of gunwaleap which
separated him from the ocean. His sleeves were rolled over his fat
forearms, and the two flaps of his unbuttoned vest dangled as he
bent to bail out the boat. Often he said, “Gawd! that was a narrow
clip.”aq As he
remarked it he invariably gazed eastward over the broken sea.
The oiler, steering with one of the two oars in the
boat, sometimes raised himself suddenly to keep clear of water that
swirled in over the stern. It was a thin little oar, and it seemed
often ready to snap.
The correspondent, pulling at the other oar,
watched the waves and wondered why he was there.
The injured captain, lying in the bow, was at this
time buried in that profound dejection and indifference which
comes, temporarily at least, to even the bravest and most enduring
when, willy-nilly,ar the
firm fails, the army loses, the ship goes down.2 The
mind of the master of a vessel is rooted deep in the timbers of
her, though he command for a day or a decade; and this captain had
on him the stern impression of a scene in the grays of dawn of
seven turned faces, and later a stump of a topmast with a white
ball on it, that slashed to and fro at the waves, went low and
lower, and down. Thereafter there was something strange in his
voice. Although steady, it was deep with mourning, and of a quality
beyond oration or tears.
“Keep‘er a little more south, Billie,” said
he.
“A little more south, sir,” said the oiler in the
stern.
A seat in this boat was not unlike a seat upon a
bucking broncho, and by the same token a broncho is not much
smaller. The craft pranced and reared and plunged like an animal.
As each wave came, and she rose for it, she seemed like a horse
making at a fence outrageously high. The manner of her scramble
over these walls of water is a mystic thing, and, moreover, at the
top of them were ordinarily these problems in white water, the foam
racing down from the summit of each wave requiring a new leap, and
a leap from the air. Then, after scornfully bumping a crest, she
would slide and race and splash down a long incline, and arrive
bobbing and nodding in front of the next menace.
A singular disadvantage of the sea lies in the fact
that after successfully surmounting one wave you discover that
there is another behind it just as important and just as nervously
anxious to do something effective in the way of swamping boats. In
a ten-foot dinghy one can get an idea of the resources of the sea
in the line of waves that is not probable to the average
experience, which is never at sea in a dinghy. As each slaty wall
of water approached, it shut all else from the view of the men in
the boat, and it was not difficult to imagine that this particular
wave was the final outburst of the ocean, the last effort of the
grim water. There was a terrible grace in the move of the waves,
and they came in silence, save for the snarling of the
crests.
In the wan light the faces of the men must have
been gray.Their eyes must have glinted in strange ways as they
gazed steadily astern. Viewed from a balcony, the whole thing would
doubtless have been weirdly picturesque. But the men in the boat
had no time to see it, and if they had had leisure, there were
other things to occupy their minds. The sun swung steadily up the
sky, and they knew it was broad day because the color of the sea
changed from slate to emerald-green streaked with amber lights, and
the foam was like tumbling snow. The process of the breaking day
was unknown to them. They were aware only of this effect upon the
color of the waves that rolled toward them.
In disjointed sentences the cook and the
correspondent argued as to the difference between a life-saving
station and a house of refuge. The cook had said: “There’s a house
of refuge just north of the Mosquito Inlet Light, and as soon as
they see us they’ll come off in their boat and pick us up.”3
“As soon as who see us?” said the
correspondent.
“The crew,” said the cook.
“Houses of refuge don’t have crews,” said the
correspondent. “As I understand them, they are only places where
clothes and grub are stored for the benefit of shipwrecked people.
They don’t carry crews.”
“Oh, yes, they do,” said the cook.
“No, they don‘t,” said the correspondent.
“Well, we’re not there yet, anyhow,” said the
oiler, in the stern.
“Well,” said the cook, “perhaps it’s not a house of
refuge that I’m thinking of as being near Mosquito Inlet Light;
perhaps it’s a lifesaving station.”
“We’re not there yet,” said the oiler in the
stern.