CHAPTER XXXI
At 7:30 on the morning of Monday, September 12, 1881, ninety-two days since the loss of the Jeannette, we shoved off from Semenovski Island for Cape Barkin on the Lena Delta, ninety-six miles away to the southwest of us. The Jeannette’s company was disposed as follows:
| First Cutter | Second Cutter | Whaleboat |
| Lieut. Comdr. De Long | Lieut. Chipp | Chief Engineer Melville |
| Surgeon Ambler | Mr. Dunbar | Lieut. Danenhower |
| Mr. Collins | Sweetman | Mr. Newcomb |
| Lee | Warren | Cole |
| Nindemann | Johnson | Bartlett |
| Noros | Starr | Leach |
| Erichsen | Kuehne | Wilson |
| Kaack | Sharvell | Manson |
| Görtz | (8) | Lauterbach |
| Dressler | Aneguin | |
| Boyd | Tong Sing | |
| Iversen | (11) | |
| Alexey | ||
| Ah Sam | ||
| (14) |
There was a fresh east wind blowing, the temperature was just below freezing, and it appeared that we were in for a wintry passage. The island behind us as we drew off was a mass of white snow standing out from the dull gray sea. Whitecaps were running everywhere. As we had anticipated, there was little floating ice in sight.
For the first hour, we made good progress, shielded somewhat by Vasselevski Island to windward, this latter being a small island a little to the southeast of Semenovski. By 9:30 A.M., however, we had cleared Vasselevski and received the full force of the sea, careening to it as the boats sped along with the taut sheets singing and our dipping lug sails drawing full. For two hours we sailed on thus, the first cutter leading, my whaleboat next, and Chipp in the second cutter following me, all the boats tossing considerably. At noon, we found ourselves running again through a moderately open drifting pack, which since we had expected to encounter no ice south of Semenovski, disturbed us exceedingly. But accepting what fate sent us, we seized the opportunity, hauled in alongside a floe, and disembarked for dinner—cold pemmican and hot tea boiled over alcohol stoves. I now had five days’ short rations left in my boat, but this worried me little as Chipp and I, stretching our legs on the ice for a few minutes before reembarking, discussed our prospects. We were both very hopeful; with the wind holding as it was from the east, we should make the last eighty miles to Cape Barkin and the Lena Delta with only one night at sea spent in our boats, and then good-by forever to hardship and to pemmican!
“By the way, brother,” I asked, looking into Chipp’s wan face, so thin now that the resemblance which he once bore to General Grant had completely vanished (unless perhaps Grant also looked like that during his Richmond campaign after the Wilderness), “have you taken aboard yet that can of pemmican De Long is carrying for you? That’s your total food supply from now on, you know.”
“No, the skipper’s still got it,” answered Chipp. “But I’m not bothering; I’ll get it from him in the morning if we still need it, which I doubt. Don’t worry, old fellow,” and jokingly he slapped me on the back. “I never expect to have to eat that damned pemmican again!”
“Well, good luck and mind your sailing then, mate.” I shook Chipp’s hand warmly. “We’ll stay reefed down so you can keep up with us.”
With a wave, I left him. Chipp was far and away the best seaman of us all—no need to worry over him. I hastened back to my own boat, filled up all our pots with freshly-fallen snow to be used for drinking water on our voyage, and in a few minutes, we all shoved off and were underway again, De Long’s last admonition to both of us being to keep formation astern of him and hold our little squadron together.
The wind continually freshened and soon hauled to the northeast, dead astern of us. This made the sailing more hazardous, for we now were constantly exposed to the danger of jibing our sails, but for some hours more, we bounced along over rough seas, on the whole grateful for the occasional drifting floes we encountered because they tended to break the waves. I managed to maneuver safely amongst these floating menaces until four o’clock, when following the first cutter through a narrow passage between two floes, a wave hurled my whaleboat to leeward, staving in our starboard side against sharp ice and I hurriedly had to haul the boat out on the floe to keep from losing her. In fifteen minutes, while the other boats lay to in the lee of that ice, I had her repaired by tacking a box cover over the hole, and overboard again, we filled away to the southwest in regular formation. That (though I soon had cause to regret it) was the last of the ice pack we ever saw.
In the open Arctic finally, we ran on, the breeze freshening all the time from the northeast and the sea picking up. Before long, Chipp began to drop steadily astern, since both De Long’s cutter and my whaleboat were far better sailors than his short cutter. To avoid losing him, we had to reef sail, first taking one reef, and soon a second, after which both the leading boats ran close-reefed while Chipp, with his sail full out, barely managed to hold position in column in my wake.
Jack Cole, who was my coxswain, had been steering since morning. Jack, put in my boat by De Long because he had been such an excellent small boat sailor, was, however, now a severe disappointment to me. For some days he had been dull and apathetic, seeming hardly to know what was going on in the boat. The weather we were facing required prompt and vigorous action at the helm, so with some reluctance I relieved Cole of the tiller, replacing him with Seaman Leach, and detailing Manson and Wilson, good sailors both, to take the tricks following, intending to relieve Leach in four hours.
As the late afternoon faded, the wind whipped up to gale force. Spray came in over our stern, soaking all of us through and through, while the freezing wind chilled us to the bone. Wet and miserable, buoyed only by the thought that before that gale we should certainly make the Lena and safety by morning, we struggled to hold position, my whaleboat pitching and rolling badly, while ahead and astern of us, we could see the other boats heaving even more crazily in the seas, a sight which did little to encourage us. To keep from jibing, running free as we were, I was forced to station a man with a boathook to hold out the sail; and not daring to trust anyone else with the job, I manned the sheet myself, hour after hour clinging to that freezing manila line. Heavy spray began to break over our stern, and we started bailing.
But despite close reefs and frequently dousing sail to deaden headway, we began to run ahead of the first cutter, which heavily laden as that square-sterned boat was with the records of the expedition, its stores, and more men than any other, proved a slower sailer than my double-ended whaleboat. Vainly I tried to hold astern of the first cutter, but each time I doused sail, the racing seas combing over our stern came heavily aboard, forcing us to bail vigorously to avoid waterlogging. By seven o’clock in the fading twilight with the wind blowing a lively gale and the sea, already bad, rapidly getting worse, I found my little boat in spite of all my efforts a thousand yards out on the weather bow of the first cutter and steadily gaining on her.
At this moment, Manson sang out,
“Chief, Ay tank dat cutter ban making signals to us!”
Looking astern across the waves, I saw De Long waving to me, apparently to come within hail. We were already close-reefed and there was no way to achieve this except by dousing sail again and drifting while he caught up, so I stationed several men to gather in the foot of the sail (she was rigged with a single mast and a dipping lug sail) while the yard came down. We partly doused sail and slackened speed, but as we did so, a sea caught us and boarded our stern, flooding us all to our hips in icy water. The men holding the foot of the sail, startled at the fear of swamping, promptly let go and we had for a moment the chaos of a flooded boat erratically heaving in the seas, a flapping sail threatening to take the stick out of her, and every man bailing wildly with any utensil at hand that would hold water.
We finally got her cleared and the sail hoisted to get some headway and hold us before the seas, when we tried again. Once more we were flooded, but while some bailed, the men at the sail, strongly admonished to hang on no matter what happened, clung to it this time, and we managed to drift almost within hail of De Long. I could see him shouting to me from his cockpit, but whatever he said (I being to windward of him) was lost in the roar of the gale. Just then another sea rolled up and combed over both boats, nearly filling mine. Instantly I jumped to my feet and bellowed down the wind to him,
“I can’t hold back, captain! It’s either run or swamp!”
Perhaps he heard me. I have a strong voice and I had the wind behind me to carry my words along. At any rate, he could see the situation and with another shout, also smothered in the wind, he waved energetically, motioning me on.
I needed no more. Promptly loosing sail, we filled away, still bailing our waterlogged craft, while I waved to him in acknowledgment. De Long turned in his tossing cockpit, and I then saw him motioning violently to Chipp, half a mile astern, possibly wanting him to come close enough aboard to toss over that forty-five-pound can of pemmican, the only food Chipp’s men would have, before the gale and the darkness separated them.
But I had my hands full in my own boat and paid little attention. We hoisted sail, shook out one reef, and shot ahead down the wind before another sea could catch us and finish the job of swamping us completely. Having gathered sufficient headway to maneuver a bit, I hauled the boat a few points closer to the wind, so that instead of heading southwest dead before it with the consequent grave danger of jibing the sail and broaching to before the oncoming seas, we now ran with the wind on our port quarter, heading roughly south and driving hard amidst heavy seas. We had our canvas weathercloths up on both sides, with the freezing men in the boat, their backs against the cloths to hold them in position, themselves all standing poised with pans ready to bail in the brief intervals when not actually bailing. And indeed, had it not been for those canvas weathercloths, so carefully fitted the day before at Semenovski, we should long since have foundered. As it was, we huddled behind them, all save Leach at the tiller, with huge seas rolling past our raised sides and sweeping heavily along the billowing canvas screens, over which even so, spray and some solid water from every crest dashed into the boat.
The sea was now running mountains. Our little boat was tossing wildly, rising dizzily to every crest as it swept up, then plunging madly down into the trough as the wave rolled by. The wind roared on, icy spray cutting like a knife drove into the boat, our sheets and halliards sang in the gale, while the mast in its step creaked dismally and our yard whipped so violently in spite of a double-reefed sail, that with each gust as we rose on a crest and the wind caught us squarely, I began to fear that both mast and sail would go flying from us down the wind like a suddenly released gull.
“Look!” shouted Leach at the tiller. “The skipper’s signalling us again, chief!”
“Never mind him!” I growled. “Watch your steering, Leach. We’re on our own now. Nobody sees any more signals for us!”
But nevertheless I looked aft myself through the twilight. We were fast outdistancing the first cutter where half a mile to windward already, I could see De Long gesticulating in the stern. But Leach was mistaken; De Long seemed to be waving to Chipp a thousand yards to windward of himself, and now a mile astern of us. As I stared, shielding my eyes as best I could from the sharp spray, I saw the second cutter rise against the sky on the crest of a breaking wave, then sink into the trough. Again she rose, when an immense sea swept over her and she broached, lying helplessly broadside to the gale! Instantly her sail jibed and the yard swung over, binding yard and sail against the mast. A man sprang up, sharply outlined against the horizon, struggling frenziedly to clear the jammed sail from the mast, then the heeling boat plunged broadside from my sight into the trough. The second cutter had evidently swamped!
Suddenly sick, I watched that spot as wave after wave rolled by, but nothing rose again, and only flying foam and breaking seas met my gaze. Broken-hearted, I stared across that mile of raging sea at the scene of that swift tragedy. There was nothing we could do. No boat could ever beat a mile dead to windward against such waves; long before we could even get our boat into the wind on the first tack, the icy waters and the tumbling seas had ended the agony of the men in the second cutter.
I sank back in the sternsheets, sobbing for the shipmates I had lost. Quiet, taciturn Chipp, who by sheer will power had conquered sickness to lead his men across the pack; grizzled old Dunbar, who had broken his health scouting paths for us over the ice; huge Starr, whose herculean back had many a time lifted my jammed boat over the hummocks in the pack; little Sharvell, whose comical seriousness had often lightened our months of tedious drifting; Sweetman, Warren, Johnson, Kuehne, good seamen every one—their struggles were forever ended. All their agonizing labors to escape from death in the pack had brought them only death in the foaming waves. Now their voyage over, they were slowly sinking through the cold depths to unmarked graves in the desolate Arctic Sea!
Chipp, the best seaman of us all, had swamped in the gale, and we were soon like to follow, for what chance was there for us where his skill was insufficient? But at least we in the whaleboat were still afloat. What of the first cutter? Fearfully, I looked aft again for her.
Still half a mile off our starboard quarter, there she was, plunging furiously along before the tumultuous waves, holding grimly to her original course, southwest, dead before the gale for Cape Barkin. I shook my head sadly. De Long should haul closer to the wind. As he was heading, it would be a miracle if the square-sterned first cutter lasted ten minutes, for one bad jibe would dismast his boat and broach her also, needing only another wave to send her tumbling on her side to follow in Chipp’s wake. But it made little difference. Regardless of course now, every sea combing past seemed ready to swamp our two insignificant cockle-shells. Chipp was already gone. Any minute now, I confidently expected to feel that strangling water in my throat, after a few feeble struggles to be overwhelmed by the breaking seas and, still gasping for air, to sink numbly through the frigid water to join Chipp on the bottom.
I saw no more of the first cutter. On different courses, she soon faded from our view into the night, and we were left alone, eleven freezing men huddling in a tiny whaleboat in a world of roaring winds, of mountainous seas, and of utter blackness.
We drove along before the storm, the wind on our port quarter, the rushing seas pressing madly against our port side, with the canvas weathercloth there billowing and sagging inboard as the crests swept along the canvas and poured in over the top. Each time we slid sickeningly down into a trough, all hands bailed for dear life, fighting to get the flood sloshing round beneath the thwarts overboard before we rose to the next crest and more water pouring aboard from the succeeding wave swamped us completely. Every pot and pan we had in the boat was pressed into service, and except for Leach, who braced in the sternsheets, clung to the tiller and steered, and except for me manning sheet and sail myself to keep us from capsizing, the others in the boat alternately pressed their shoulders back against the weatherscreen to hold it up while rising to the crests, and leaned forward, bailing furiously while sinking into the troughs.
Numbed fingers clung to ice-coated pans, icy water sloshed over our heads and down our necks, our frozen feet had long since lost all sensation, and the careening boat beneath us pitched, rolled, and heaved so dizzily that only by clinging continuously to the thwarts did we manage to escape being tossed bodily overboard.
Leach in the stern, the one man besides myself whose task required him to stand motionless in one spot, did a miraculous job of steering. Had he but once allowed her to swing off the course we should have broached immediately and capsized. But clinging to the tiller in the darkness, more by feel than by such vague sight as the foaming crests sweeping by gave him of the direction of the sea, he kept the wind on the port quarter, standing himself wholly unprotected, a fair target for each smashing wave breaking over the stern to drench him completely.
Straining my eyes through the blackness as I clung to the sheet, I watched the seas coming over and the men bailing. It was obvious that we were fighting a losing battle. Even though Leach at the helm and I at the sheet managed to keep her from broaching or jibing or both at once, and thus instantly ending the struggle, it was evident that those bailing could not indefinitely keep ahead of the water coming in over our stern, and sooner or later we should fill and founder. Oh, for some drifting floes! If only we might run into another field of ice which would at least deaden the seas if not allow us to haul out on a floe! The ice pack, which many times in the long months past I had cursed vehemently, I now earnestly prayed for as our only sure salvation. But we had long since dropped astern the last floe, and now we must battle it out with the turbulent sea. There was only one thing more I could do before my men, barely able now to keep us afloat by bailing, between numbness and exhaustion found themselves unable to keep the water going overboard as fast as the tempestuous seas poured it in. Regardless of the hazard involved, I must come about, head into the crests, heave to, and ride out the gale bows on, held that way by a sea anchor, while our canvas-decked forecastle, instead of our open stern, took the brunt of the oncoming waves.
But to heave to meant inviting quick destruction, for the maneuver involved turning broadside to the waves for an instant as we swung our bow about to head into the wind. To make matters worse, while in that critical position we must use our oars to swing the boat and that meant dropping our weathercloths down to the gunwales at the very instant when most of all we needed every inch of freeboard possible to avoid taking over a solid beam sea and foundering out of hand.
Just abaft me, huddled against the weathercloth was Danenhower. I leaned over in the darkness and shouted into his ear,
“Dan, it’s blowing like blazes! We’d better heave to!”
Dan turned his face, with his bandage dripping water, toward me and nodded,
“Yes, Melville. You should have done it long ago!” he yelled back.
That startled me, for if he thought so, Dan should certainly have made the suggestion himself. Why had he chosen instead to keep his mouth shut? But it was no time to argue why or wherefor. We must heave to.
“Get hold of Jack Cole!” I roared. “We’ll try it now!”
Soon in the sternsheets, Cole, Danenhower, and I were debating what we should use for the sea anchor, or drag, to which the boat must ride. Dan advised making the drag of three of our oars with our sail lashed between them, but this I refused to do, for if we lost the sea anchor, our oars and sails would both be gone and then we would be helpless indeed. Canvassing what little else we had in the boat to stretch out the sides of a drag, I hit on three brass-tipped tent poles, and these I ordered used, with a section of tent cloth as the drag itself.
Working in the half-swamped boat, Cole and Manson together made the drag, lashing the ends of the three tent poles into a six-foot triangle, and then lacing inside it the piece of tent. Meantime Danenhower unrove a small block and fall to get a line and from that manila line made up a short three-legged bridle, one leg of which went to each corner of the triangular drag, while all the rest of the line was to serve as our anchor cable. The result of all this, when we were through (which working under bad conditions in the darkness took two hours) was that we had what looked like a large triangular kite at the end of a long manila line, the main difference being that our kite or sea anchor we were going to fly in water instead of in air, and as it dragged vertically through the water, it was to hold us head to the oncoming seas that we might ride them bows-on.
On one matter at the end of all this, Cole and I differed. The drag had to be heavy enough to sink beneath the surface, for if it floated, it would be ineffective. But if it were too heavy, it would sink too far and instead of streaming out ahead of us, would hang vertically beneath our bows, keeping them from rising to the seas, and helping to swamp us. Cole stoutly maintained that the completed drag was not heavy enough to sink. While somewhat inclined to agree, I refused to add more weight, for to a buoyant drag I could always add more ballast, but it was doubtful in that storm that I could ever get my hands again on a sunken drag to remove excess weight, until the boat having swamped, I caught up with the submerged drag on my own way to the bottom. However, to appease Jack, I got a copper fire-pot ready to slide out on the line if it should be necessary to add more weight, and we were ready to proceed.
At this point, Lieutenant Danenhower, who had been busy making the bridle, spoke up again.
“Melville!” he sang out in my ear above the howling wind. “Will you let me heave her to?”
I hesitated. Dan was over half blinded. But, I thought to myself, in this darkness that was no great handicap; he could probably see as much as anyone. And certainly as a deck officer, he should know more about handling a boat in a seaway than anyone else in her, including me, an engineer. Our lives depended on that maneuver; I should be derelict in my duty not to use the best talent available.
“Sure, Dan,” I replied, “go ahead and give the orders. We’ll all do what you say.”
So to poor Danenhower, for nearly two years now nothing but a helpless burden on the rest of us, had at last come opportunity to serve. The crisp way in which he rattled out the orders, stationing the men, infused new strength into the exhausted crew. To stocky Bartlett went the most important task; he was posted in the bow with the drag, and the anchor line was carefully coiled down at his feet, ready for running freely out when he heaved the drag over at the word. Bosun Cole stood by the halliards to douse sail, with Aneguin and Tong Sing to gather in the canvas as it came down. I tended the sheet, Leach steered, Manson stood by an oar poised high on the port side, and Wilson an oar similarly ready to starboard. This left only Lauterbach to tend to the bailing, for Newcomb, as always, was next to worthless even though he now had the excuse of extreme seasickness to mask his piddling efforts at real labor.
With a last all-hands dash to bail down as dry as possible, the men took their stations. In silence and in darkness we waited, holding up the weathercloths while several tremendous waves rolled by and we rocked wildly to them. Judging then that we should have a momentarily quieter sea, Danenhower bellowed,
“Out oars! Starboard the helm! Down sail!”
Down dropped the weathercloths, out shot the two oars, hard astarboard went the tiller, and down came the flapping sail and yard as we swung off to port, trying quickly to come about and head up into the sea. Wilson to starboard gave way valiantly on his oar while Manson to port backed heavily on his, endeavoring to get her spun about before the next wave caught us broadside, when with the boat hardly more than a quarter way round—Crash! came a wave tumbling in over our low gunwale and flooding us to the thwarts!
Heaving to was forgotten. With might and main all hands dropped their tasks to start bailing again except Leach and the oarsmen who struggled desperately to straighten her out again on her old course before the waterlogged whaleboat broached to the next wave and capsized. By the grace of God we succeeded in that, and hearts in our mouths, bailed madly while with the oars alone we kept away before the sea till the boat was sufficiently dry to risk coming about once more.
After a hurried consultation with Dan, I stationed the men as before, and we stood tensely by. Again we pitched crazily to a succession of roaring crests and as we slid dizzily down the trough of the third one, Dan once more sang out the orders.
This time, with oars thrashing the sea in desperation, we swung more quickly, and before the next wave struck, we had the boat spun about, head on to its breaking crest as our bow suddenly lifted to a tremendous wave.
“Let go the drag!” bawled Dan, and Bartlett in the bow tossed over the canvas triangle. At that instant, the bow dived sickeningly into the next trough, and Bartlett, off balance, pitched headlong forward toward the sea!
For an instant I thought he was gone completely with little chance of our getting to him before the sea swept him away, but fortunately our slacked halliards were streaming out over the bow and as Bartlett shot overboard he got his right hand on the halliards, stopping his plunge. The next second, as he hung there in air, the boat rose again to the crest of a huge wave, the mast whipped back, and Bartlett came flying inboard on the halliards against the mast to which he clung for dear life as he slowly slid down to the thwarts.
Meanwhile other things were rapidly happening. Still manning the oars, Manson and Wilson were holding us head to the seas while the drag line ran out and I watched it anxiously till it brought up at the bitter end. In disappointment, I saw that the drag was too light, coming immediately to the surface and drifting down to leeward, holding us not at all. We yawed badly, shipping water over both sides in spite of all our two oars and the rudder could do to hold us bows on, and, as expected, Jack Cole immediately piped up with,
“Shure, Mr. Melville, I tould yez so!”
“Right, Jack; you did!” I shouted. “And now we’ll fix it. Bartlett! Send down that fire-pot!” Bartlett, again on his feet seized the copper fire-pot and sent it sliding on a lashing out over the bow and down the anchor line to the drag, which it promptly sank. A heavy strain came immediately on the drag line as the sea anchor gripped the water and in a few seconds we were riding head to the seas with our oars in, our weathercloths once more raised on our bulwarks, our sail furled, and the helmsman, as before, continuously steering to keep us from yawing on the drag line.
My thumping heart quieted somewhat. Dan had done a fine job. We had come about without capsizing and for the moment we were safe. All we had to do now was to bail continuously to keep afloat, but so long as our drag line held, we were secure. But as much vigilance as ever was necessary, for if that line parted, and we went adrift, unless we were immediately ready with the oars, our first yaw would probably also be our last one.
By now it was ten o’clock and pitch dark. All through the rest of that terrible night we tossed violently at the end of our sea anchor line, bailing, always bailing. My hands were swollen by cold, blistered from hanging on to the sheet while we sailed, and cracked and split by freezing salt water, while my feet were both badly frozen. Leach, who for the first time I now dared to relieve from his station at the tiller, was as badly off as I, and the rest of the crew, not much better. And now thirst was added to our sufferings, for we had not a drop of fresh water, every bit of snow that originally we had in the boat in our pots and kettles having long since been thoroughly soused in sea water and spoiled.
The gale shrieked on, the waves rolled by, the cold spray dashed in and froze on us, and in the darkness wearily and endlessly we bailed the boat till at last came dawn to put the final touch to our misery by adding to each man’s sense of his own suffering the sight of his shipmates’ wretched state.
Cold, thirsty, and hungry after twelve excruciating hours of bailing, my exhausted crew looked expectantly at me for their rations. In the boat, there was nothing left in the way of food or drink but a little pemmican.
Sadly I recalled Chipp’s last remark about his being through with pemmican, only a jest when made, tragic now. Poor Chipp! Pemmican, in truth, meant nothing to him any more. If only I had him and his second cutter’s crew following astern of me again, how gladly would I divide my meager supply of pemmican with them! Mournfully I looked at our tiny stock. At the previous miserly rate of issue, it should last us five days, but no longer did I dare to hope that Cape Barkin and rescue were just over the horizon. Heaven alone knew where, drifting at the mercy of wind and wave, we would be when the gale blew out. I must stretch our food to the utmost. So in spite of grumbling from my ravenous crew, I cut our already short ration squarely in half and issued for our breakfast so small a piece of pemmican that not a man, after swallowing his ration at a gulp, but growled for more.
At the end of that sea anchor line, our whaleboat weaved, twisted, and leaped erratically about amongst the foaming waves, more terrifying now that we could see the thundering crests sweeping down and breaking over us, than even in the darkness. Monotonously we bailed; Aneguin, our Indian hunter, and Charley Tong Sing, our Chinese steward, strangely enough proving far more dextrous with the bailing pots than any sailor in the boat. Almost helpless myself, with numbed hands and frozen feet from long hours of hanging on to the sheet, I watched forward while the endless task went on, keeping a weary eye on that thin manila line going over our bow to our sea anchor, that thread to which our boat rode head to the gale, our life line indeed.
And then mixed with the screaming of the winds, I caught a burst of laughter. Laughter? I could hardly believe my ears. What in God’s name could anyone see in our situation that was funny? Painfully I twisted my ice-sheathed body round on the thwart to see, and then I groaned. On the midship thwart sat Jack Cole no longer bailing, a maniacal gleam in his eyes, rocking with childish glee in the spray of each wave as it broke over the weathercloth and poured in on him, laughing, laughing horribly. Jack Cole, our bosun, like a little child was splashing playfully in the water!
Like a flash there came over me an understanding of Cole’s apathy and inexplicable stupidity during the last few days. His mind had evidently been going then; now after the horrors of the night, it was completely gone!
That terrible laughter must not continue. With my whole crew near the breaking point, a little more of that insane shrieking in the storm and I would have only a boat-load of lunatics to depend on, if indeed I did not soon become one myself. I dragged aft a bit, took Cole gently by the hand.
“Come on, Jack,” I said kindly, “let’s go forward where we can see the waves better and I can help you watch them.”
Jack stopped laughing, looked blankly at me, but offered no resistance and together we dragged our frozen legs over the thwarts to the bow. There, smiling happily, Jack started laughing again as a terrific sea broke dead on our stem, nearly drowning me in foaming water.
In the midst of that insane cackle, I grabbed Cole suddenly by both shoulders, pushed him heavily down beneath the thwart and shoved him in under the canvas-covered forecastle forward of our mast, where at least the canvas would muffle that ghastly laugh.
“Take a nap now, old fellow,” I said soothingly as possible. “You’re tired!”
“Shure an’ I am that,” mumbled Cole from beneath the canvas. “But ye’ll not be fergittin’ to call me agin soon so’s we kin watch thim waves?”
“No, Jack, I won’t,” I promised. “Just as soon as you’re rested.”
Without another word, Jack, half covered with the icy water sloshing about in the bilges, went dead to the world, and I, turning wanly from the gale, sagged back against the mast, staring at the haggard men in the boat abaft me bailing, bailing, while the never-ending waves foamed up and broke sickeningly over our bow.