He actually took Billy’s arm and pushed him toward the boat. “There is no one but Johann Happs would stand a chance of getting across in the face of such a storm,” he added, “but I believe he can make it. I will explain to your Aunt. Now drop in the tender, and I will push you off.”
People tell on Appledore Island today, and will tell for many a year to come, of the great storm of April, nineteen seventeen. They will show you just how far up the shore the waves broke at high tide; they will tell you the maximum velocity of the wind, and will point out the broken wreckage of two fishing boats that dragged their anchors and were thrown upon the beach. And they will always end by saying—
“And would you believe it, there were two boys that put out to sea right in the face of it? Boys, mind you, and one of them not born and bred to sailing a boat. A little craft, they had, too; Sanderson’s Echo; you can see her at anchor over yonder by the wharf.”
“Would you believe it, there were two boys that put to sea right in the face of it?”
Only the utter recklessness of two headlong boys could have conceived such an expedition; only the almost uncanny skill of one and the blind obedience of the other could ever have carried it through. Billy, who did not yet know all that there was to be learned of sailing, could still realize that never had he seen a boat handled as was the little Echo with Johann Happs at the helm. He himself made a better assistant than he had on the day when he and Captain Saulsby capsized; he knew what to do when he could help, and how to keep out of the way when he could not.
The harbour of Appledore faced the open sea, so that it seemed more than once that the furious wind must blow them back upon the beach or dash them against the rocks as they sought to clear the point. Then they were past it at last, and flying before the wind toward the distant shore. Billy had one last glimpse of the Island as they rose on the crest of a wave, then a curtain of rain descended and blotted it from his sight. Yet even above the wind he could hear the strange, deep humming voice of Appledore calling aloud to speed them on their way.
“This wind is nothing to what is coming,” Johann shouted.
Except for this remark and for the orders he issued from time to time, he scarcely spoke throughout their long and perilous voyage. White-faced, determined, with eyes that seemed to be seeing far visions, rather than the hungry seas about him, he stood at the tiller and, by main strength of will it seemed, drove the little boat upon her course. To Billy it appeared that at any moment one of the vast, green mountains of water that ran beside, must sweep in upon them with its overwhelming flood, but always the boat lifted just in time and slipped over the crests in safety.
He crouched in the bottom, drenched, shivering, blinded by the flying spray, thinking of nothing but Johann’s next order and whether he could carry it out. Dimly he realized that the wind shrieked ever louder through the rigging, that the great waves were becoming greater, that the squalls of rain were sharper and more frequent. Yet he never doubted the outcome; he felt certain that Johann’s skill would not fail them, that the wind might roar as it pleased, and the threatening waves rise as high as they willed, that it all would bring them only the more swiftly to the desired haven.