First Officer Tiere now found plenty of work to do. The sea was very rough, and the lifeboat pitched and rolled dangerously. There was no fear of her sinking, because she was fitted with air-tanks, but the ever-present danger was that she would be overturned as the great seas played shuttlecock with her. The men worked hard at baling her out; and then, to give her some sort of steadiness, rigged up a sea anchor out of oars and old canvas, and so held her head to the seas. All the time a sharp look-out was kept for signs of vessels, but none was seen, and Tiere, realising how serious things were getting, apportioned the rations. The water was allotted out—a pint a day per man, with a biscuit per meal; and for a week they subsisted on this fare, thinking themselves fortunate. Then the water began to give out, and the portion was reduced. But economy in this direction meant suffering; the men, weak and faint from want of food, parched with thirst, became delirious; and although there was some rain on Thursday, the 7th, and some more on the following Monday, it did not increase their water-supply sufficiently to make any difference.
And some of the men, maddened with thirst, took to drinking sea-water. It was the beginning of the end. One man died, mad, on the 11th, and they dropped him overboard, Tiere saying what part of the burial service he could remember. Next day another man died, and two more on the following morning—all of them victims to their insatiable thirst, which grew more maddening as, against all advice, they swallowed great gulps of sea-water.
Tiere, fighting for their lives, when they would not fight themselves, commandeered the sole dipper they had in the boat, so that they could not drink so much; then, when, exhausted, he would lie down to snatch a few hours’ sleep, they would creep round him and steal the dipper, and drink the water that meant death until he awoke and fought for the cup. Whereupon, with the pangs of thirst eating into their very vitals, the raving men, shouting curses at him for his interference, and defying him to stop them, would lean over the gunwales and lap up the water like dogs.
Then came delirium; raving, cursing, struggling mad they went. And then into the Great Unknown, singing in their madness.
Even the men who contented themselves with the small portion of fresh water which Tiere had allotted to them, even these knew the agonies of that dreadful voyage, which was leading nowhere; mists and fogs hung around them all day; the cold winds of night blew upon them and, in their weakened strength, sapped at the very roots of their life.
Thus the nightmare held on, with death and awful suffering to make these unfortunate men sure that it was real. They were almost foodless now, as well as waterless.
On the Friday there came the most tragic incident of all: Jakob, a big Russian, an oiler of the Columbian, thrown off his balance by thirst, had imbibed great quantities of salt water. The effects soon began to show themselves, and Jakob, a raving maniac, sat in the bow of the boat with an axe in his hand, vowing he would kill the whole crew.
“I’m going to shore—getta drink,” he cried, and the fear-stricken men expected every moment to see him hurl himself overboard. Instead, he sat muttering foolishly, toying with the axe they dreaded, leering viciously at them, gesticulating savagely. Tiere, weakened, emaciated, staggered along towards the six-foot Russian; he must get that axe away. There was a mist before his eyes, a vagueness in his mind, and a half-formed thought that somehow the Russian would bring the end sooner were he not disarmed. He talked to him, hardly knowing what he said, bullied him, coaxed him, humoured him, while the crew looked on in anxiety; and the madman at last gave up the axe. Then Tiere made him lie down, settled him as comfortably as possible, and himself went to snatch a little sleep, of which he was sorely in need.
For a while all was still; darkness was now upon them; only the howl of the wind and the lap, lap of the water against the sides broke the silence. Then slowly along the boat there crept a dark form, with madness in its eyes; it was Jakob, and in his hands he carried the boat stretcher. He was making aft to where the other men were, intent on killing them all. Fortunately someone saw him coming, and instantly all were alert, ready for him.
Cursing in Russian and broken English, Jakob hurled himself upon them, vowing to murder them all. He wanted the water that was left, and he would have it. Aye, he would have it! The wretched men, gathering up the remnants of their once full-blooded strength, tackled him bravely, wrenching the stretcher away and seeking to tie him up. How they fought, to the danger of being pitched overboard to death, and with the prospect of being kicked to pulp by the Russian’s heavy boots! It was like a scene from some book of wild adventure, that fight in so strange a setting; yet to these men it was real, and life and death hung upon its issue. There was no light by which to see whether one struck friend or foe, only the curses of the Russian to show when a blow landed upon him; and the night was made hideous by yells as the frenzied men struggled madly for control. At last it was over: the giant lay inert in the bottom of the boat, tied securely and lashed to a thwart, where for five or six hours he lay screaming, cursing, struggling to release himself, and then died.