The third day of our troubles, while I was still struggling with a frozen steam whistle line through which I was trying to get steam forward to start my Sewell pump, there into the glacial deckhouse beside me came our surgeon, wan and pinched and hardly able to drag one foot after another. I gazed at him startled. He had not been out of his bunk since his illness.
“What’s the matter, brother?” I queried anxiously. “Why aren’t you aft in your berth where you belong? We don’t need help; we’re getting along here beautifully.”
“Where’s the captain?” he asked, ignoring my questions. “I want him right away.”
“Below there,” I replied, pointing down the forepeak hatch. “He’s inspecting the work on the bulkhead. Shall I call him for you, doc?”
Apparently too weak to speak a word more than he had to, Ambler only nodded. A little alarmed, I poked my head down the hatch into the dark peak tank and called out to De Long standing far below on the keelson. He looked up, I beckoned him, and he started cautiously to climb the icy ladder, shortly to be blinking incredulously through his frosty glasses at Ambler, even more astonished than I at seeing him out of bed. Ambler wasted no words in explanations regarding his presence.
“It’s Danenhower, captain. I got up as soon as I could to examine him. His eye’s so much worse today that if I don’t operate, he’ll lose it! So I came looking for you to get your permission first. You know how things stand with us all.”
The captain knew, all right. It was easy to guess, looking into his harassed eyes as Ambler talked, what was going through De Long’s mind—a sick surgeon, poor medical facilities, a leaking ship, and the possibility of having the patient unexpectedly thrust out on that terrible pack to face the rigors of the Arctic, where with even good eyes in imminent peril of freezing in their sockets at 50° below zero, what chance for an eyeball recently sliced open? All this and more besides was plainly enough reflected in the skipper’s woebegone eyes and wrinkling brows. De Long thought it over slowly, then wearily shook his head.
“I can’t give permission, doctor. It’s not Dan’s eye alone; it means his very life if we have to leave the ship soon. And since it’s his life against his eye we’re risking, he ought to have a voice in it. I can’t say yes; I won’t say no. Put it up to Dan; let him decide himself.”
“Aye, aye, sir; I’ll explain it to him.” Dr. Ambler swung about, went feebly aft, leaving the captain and me soberly regarding each other.
“You’re dead right, captain; nobody but Dan should decide. It’s too much of a load for another man to have on his conscience if things go wrong.”