Jethou; or, Crusoe Life in the Channel Isles

by Ernest R. Suffling

I was like the prophet Jeremiah weeping over Jerusalem, for I sat down on a rock, and viewing the desolation around me, wept also. Then I dried my wet cheeks, and there and then set about clearing the ruin. But it was a great task, and would take several days before I could clear the debris and recover such goods and chattels as were not totally destroyed. I dug, I heaved over great masses of granite wall which had been tumbled inward and outward by the explosion, I sawed through beams and hacked through rafters with an axe, but my thoughts were not altogether with my work.

Every man has a skeleton in his cupboard, but I had more; I had a whole carcase lying near my house, and this occupied my mind as much as my labour. As I thought of it, so the harder I worked, but to no purpose, and presently, for a spell of breathing, I sat down, axe in hand, upon a beam, and resolved to decide there and then what to do.

During the daylight I did not so much mind my dread visitor, but it was the approaching night I did not like. Why are we so much more in fear of unseen things at night than during the day? Whence comes the spell of dread that night brings beneath its black wing? Does darkness affect the nerves of a blind man as it does that of one with his full visual powers? I think not. Probably day and night are but as one to the blind. Then why does darkness bring a certain awe to ordinary mortals?

But to resume the thread of my narrative.

It appeared to me that there were three courses open to me. I could fire the cannon (I had a few pounds of powder in the store near the house) and summon aid; I could dig a grave and bury the body; or I could hitch on my donkey and drag it down to the water at low tide, and let it be washed whithersoever the sea should take it.

I did not like either of these plans. If I fired the cannon it would bring a possé of curious, prying people to the island, and probably I should be taken away to St. Peter Port upon a coroner's quest. If I buried the man I should always shun that part of the island, and should have a constant memorial of my "night of horror" to depress me; while if I committed the body to the waves I should for ever have it on my conscience that I refused burial to a christian.

Then I thought, why not at dawn in the morning tow the body to Herm, and drag it ashore on the rocks opposite the labourers' cottages, as if it had been flung there by the waves; but a high sea was running, and to my craft the passage of the Percée was impossible, for the current running through it would have swept me away, so that with a weight towing astern I should never have reached Herm, not even if I had taken the corpse as a passenger inside my boat. I lit my pipe to conjure up fresh inspiration, and the charm worked, for I got an idea which seemed to me to fulfil all my requirements from a religious point of view, and it also appeared practicable.

Being a sailor, my idea was to give the poor fellow a sailor's funeral, and bury him myself at sea; and if the sea were not too rough it should take place this very night. It wanted yet an hour of dusk, and I would commence my preparations at once. Having formed my plan, and looked calmly upon my undertaking as one that was a duty for a christian man to perform, the fear in a great measure seemed to leave me.

I hauled down my boat, with "Eddy's" help, to high-water mark, and then went, with as bold a mien as I could muster, to the poor man's side; nerving myself with a prayer I lifted the straw from his face, and was pleased to find that the features had assumed their normal aspect, in fact but for the eyes being partly opened, he looked as if he were asleep. This was a great relief to me, and I now felt firm for the task I had undertaken. I got the body on the cart by great exertion, and transported it to the boat, where I laid it across amidships on two planks and tied a huge rock to each ankle; then, having prepared everything by the time night set in, I left the boat, as I found the tide would not float her away, and went home.

I thought if I waited another four or five hours the swell of the sea would run down with the tide and become calm enough for me to venture out upon my mission. I therefore had a substantial meal, and lay down on my bed to rest, as I was very tired with my day's work and my previous sleepless night.