When night came on, there came with it a deepening sense of loneliness and isolation. The night was also very cold, the chill penetrated our thin clothing, and we were compelled to row the boat to keep ourselves, not warm, but a little less cold. The icebergs coming down on the Arctic Current hold the season back, and early June on the Banks is much like April on the Massachusetts coast. We tried to sleep lying down in the bottom of the boat with our heads in a trawl tub, but we were stiff with cold, the boat leaked badly, and it was necessary to get up frequently and bail out the water. The thought also that we might drift within sight or sound of a vessel, or within sight of a trawl buoy, made us afraid to sleep.
The night finally wore away, the second day and night were like the first, the third like the first and second and the fourth day like another "cycle of Cathay." These four days and nights were like solitary confinement to the prisoner, the grim monotony and lack of incident contributing to the cumulative effect and accentuating the sense of helplessness and isolation. There was nothing to relieve the situation. We were like an army lying in trenches in the face of the enemy, waiting for the enemy's move.
The fourth night we were startled by the sound of the fog horn of a sailing vessel. The wind was blowing almost a gale. We listened to get the direction, then sprang to the oars and rowed hard to intercept her, shouting, listening, rowing with all our strength, and willing, if need be, to be run down, in the chance of being seen and rescued. The horn finally sounded so near that it seemed that we could almost see the vessel, and we felt sure that they could hear our call. But our hearts sank as the sounds grew fainter and soon we were alone again with the wind and fog. The fifth day we heard the whistle of an ocean steamship. "We can surely head this one off," we thought, but she quickly passed us, too far away to see or hear. It was a bitter disappointment as this floating hotel, full of warmth, food, water, shelter and companionship, for the lack of each and all of which we were perishing, rushed by, so near, yet unconscious and unheeding, in too great a hurry to stop and listen to our cry for help. I have thought of this since, as I have hurried along with the crowd in the street of a great city and wondered, if we stopped to listen, what cry might come to us out of the deep.
The fifth night the sea was running high. We were drifting with a trawl tub fastened to the "painter" as a drag to keep the boat headed to the wind, when it began to rain. I spread my oil jacket to catch the water, and we waited until we could collect enough for a drink, watching the drops eagerly, as we had tasted neither food nor water since leaving the vessel five days before. Just as we were about to drink, however, our boat shipped a sea, filling the oil jacket with salt water, and there was no more rain.
Every day we passed great flocks of sea fowl floating on the water, coming frequently almost within an oar's length, but always just out of reach. We were in worse condition than the Ancient Mariner, with food as well as water everywhere about us, and not a morsel or a drop to eat or drink. Thirst is harder to endure than hunger, and yet hunger finally wakes up the wolf; and the time comes when even the thought of cannibalism can be entertained without horror. About this time John asked me, "Well, what do you think?"
"Oh," I said, "I think that one of us will come out of it all right."
He started, as if he thought that I had premature designs on him.
"You need not be afraid," I said, "I'll not take advantage of you."
He knew that I was the stronger and perhaps thought that if I felt as he did, his chances were very small.
The sixth day, John seemed like a man overwhelmed with the horror of a situation that had gotten beyond his control. He cowered at the opposite end of the boat and had said nothing for a long time. Finally he opened a conversation with a person of whose presence I had not been conscious.