“Quit trying to fool me, chief,” pleaded Dan. “It’s no use. Maybe I can’t see, but I can hear! So I know what’s going on around me. As long as I hear that hand pump clanking, things are bad! And with the skipper’s cabin right over my head and yours just across the wardroom and me lying here twenty-four hours a day with nothing to do but listen, don’t you think I know when you turn in? And neither of you’ve turned in for a total of ten minutes in two nights now! Don’t try to explain that away!”
I winced. Dan, in spite of the Stygian darkness in which he lived, had the facts. No use glossing matters over.
“Listen, Dan, I’m not fooling you,” I answered with all the earnestness I could muster. “It’s true we haven’t slept much, but we’re both all right. And while things looked pretty bad at first, for a fact, we got that leak practically licked. Before the day’s over, that hand pump will shut down for good. Now forget us and the ship; let’s get back to Danenhower. What can I do for you, brother?” I gave his palm a friendly caress.
I felt Dan’s invisible hand twitch in mine, then close convulsively on my fingers.
“I’m in a tough spot, Melville. The doctor tells me if he doesn’t operate, I’ll go blind. And if he does, and I have to leave the ship before my eye’s healed and he can strip the bandages, I’ll probably die! And it’s up to me to decide which. Simple, isn’t it, chief?” Danenhower groaned. Had I not kept my lips tightly sealed, I should have groaned also at his pathetic question. With a lump in his throat, he added, “I don’t want to go back blind to my f—,” he choked the merest fraction of a second over the word, then substituting another, I think, hastily finished—“friends, but as much as anybody here I want to get back alive if I can. Honestly, chief, you won’t fool a blind shipmate just to spare his feelings, will you?” He gripped my hand fiercely. “What’re our chances with the ship? I’ve got to know!”
“The leak’s licked, Dan,” I assured him earnestly. “We won’t sink because of that. But about what the ice is going to do to us, your guess is as good as mine. Seeing what she’s fought off so far, I’d back the old Jeannette’s ribs to hold out against the pack for a while yet.”
“Thanks, chief, for your opinion.” Dan pressed my hand once more, then slowly relaxed his grip. “I guess I’ll have to think it over some more before I decide. You’d better go now; sorry to have dragged you so long from your work to worry you over my poor carcass.”
I said nothing, I dared not, fearing that my voice would break. With big Dan stretched out blind and helpless on his bunk, invisible there, to me only a voice and a groping hand in the darkness, I slipped away silently, leaving him to grapple with the choice—to operate or not to operate—possible death in the first case, certain blindness in the second. And with the knowledge that however he chose, the final answer lay, not with him, but with the Arctic ice pack. He must guess what it had in store for the Jeannette with his sight or his life the forfeit if he guessed wrong. I went back to my own trifling problem, thawing out the steam line.
Shortly afterward, Tong Sing came forward again, calling the captain this time, who immediately went aft. Whether Danenhower had decided or whether he was seeking further information, the steward did not know. I worked in suspense for the next hour till De Long returned. One look at his face informed me how Dan had decided.
“Well, brother, when’s the operation?”