Out of the Fog: A Story of the Sea

by Charles K. Ober

"They wandered.... in a solitary way; they found no city to dwell in. Hungry and thirsty, their soul fainted in them. Then they cried unto the Lord in their trouble, and he delivered them out of their distresses, and he led them forth by the right way, that they might go to a city of habitation.... Such as sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, being bound in affliction and iron; because they rebelled against the words of God, and contemned the counsel of the Most High: therefore he brought down their heart with labor; they fell down and there was none to help. Then they cried unto the Lord in their trouble, and he saved them out of their distresses. He brought them out of darkness and the shadow of death, and brake their bands in sunder..... They that go down to the sea in ships, that do business in great waters; these see the works of the Lord, and his wonders in the deep. For he commandeth, and raiseth the stormy wind, which lifteth up the waves thereof. They mount up to the heaven, they go down again to the depths: their soul is melted because of trouble... they are at their wits' end. Then they cry unto the Lord in their trouble, and he bringeth them out of their distresses. He maketh the storm a calm, so that the waves thereof are still. Then are they glad because they be quiet; so he bringeth them unto their desired haven."

I had drifted into the "secret place," the door was shut, and it was the right time and place for me to pray. I saw that my life had been a failure, that I was absolutely worthless, and that, if death came then, there was not one good thing that I had ever done that would survive. In fact, I could think of nothing in my life that was worth remembering. I was not so much concerned about my own salvation as for another chance to live and to do an unselfish work in the world. And so I did what I thought then (and think still) was the only sane thing to do, I signaled for the Pilot.

That night the rain came. I spread my oil jacket and caught an abundance of water of which we drank deeply. With this refreshment came new hope and new courage for the final struggle, if safety could be gained that way. I reviewed the situation and considered one by one the possible courses we might take. We seemed to be shut in to three things. The first possibility was to row to land; but the nearest land, the Newfoundland coast, was nearly three hundred miles away, and I decided that we did not have the time or the strength to reach it. The second possibility was to be picked up by a passing vessel; but this did not look encouraging, for two had already passed us. The third and last hope was to find a fishing vessel at anchor, and within a reasonable distance. This last possibility seemed almost probable. But how probable? Possibly within ten miles, probably within twenty-five, certainly within fifty, some fishermen were plying their trade, but where? There are thirty-two points of the compass, and by deviating one point at the center, a distance of fifty miles would bring us ten miles out of the way at the circumference. We could row fifty miles, but we cannot take chances. Yet there is a snug little fishing craft out there on the rim of the circle, waiting for us to find her! But which way shall we go? I finally decided that this was a problem for the Pilot, and I left it with Him, satisfied that He understood His business and that if He had any orders for me, He knew how to communicate them.

The eighth day came, and with it came an impulse to row the boat in a certain direction. This impulse was not unlike the thousands that had come to me before. There was nothing about it to indicate that its source was any higher than my own imagination. If this was a voice from above the fog, it was certainly a still, small one. It was unheeded at first, not unrecognized. Reason said that to conserve our strength we should sit still and wait for the lifting of the fog. Fear whispered that if I obeyed the impulse, we might be rowing directly away from safety. But the impulse persisted and prevailed.

"Get up, John," I said, "we have a day's work ahead of us. We are going to row off in this direction."

John responded automatically, fear acting in place of reason, but he was soon exhausted and lay down again. I kept on, however, resting now and then, and returning to the oars with the thought that fifty miles was a long distance and that we had a very small margin of time to our credit. Our course was with the wind, and nature worked with us all that eighth day and on into the night, as the pressure on me drove us toward our goal.

About the middle of the eighth night I realized that I had reached the limit of my fighting strength. John was in worse condition than I, for I still had hope, but my hope was not in myself. Then I talked the situation over with the Pilot. We had nowhere else to go; we had come as far as we could; our time was nearly up--what of the night? and what of the morning? John was asleep; the world was a long way off: the sea and the mist seemed to have rolled over us and to have buried us ten thousand fathoms deep. But "out of the depths I cried," and I found the communication open.

Between midnight and dawn the fog lifted and from the overhanging clouds the rain fell gently through the remainder of the night. John lay in his end of the boat, but I sat watching. Finally, as if in response to some secret signal, the darkness began its inevitable retreat and, as the night horizon receded, out of the gray of the morning, growing more and more distinct as the shadows fell away, appeared a dark object less than two miles distant, nebulous at first, then unmistakable in its character. It was a solitary fishing vessel lying at anchor, toward which we had been rowing and drifting unerringly all through the night and the day before.

There it was! only a clumsy old fisherman, but it was the best thing in all the world to us, and it was anchored and could not get away!

I do not recall the experience of any tumultuous emotion as this messenger of hope appeared on our horizon, but we knew that we were safe. How easy it is to write this simple word of four letters! but, to realize it, one must have a background of despair. Since that morning, the words "safe," "safety," "salvation," have always come to me freighted with reality.