With the schooner lying broad in the sea, they went below, and McKenzie lit the lamps and went over to examine Wesley, who was lying where they had left him. Cutting the clothing away from the injured limb, Donald found the leg fearfully bruised and swollen. Fixing it up as best he could, he made the injured man comfortable by shoring him with pillows and blankets, and he turned to Surrette. The old man had been hove against the bulwarks and had received a nasty cut on the head, but when a spoonful of rum had been forced between his teeth, he became conscious. After bathing and dressing the wound, Donald left him in a bunk, and scanned the barometer.
“Rising!” he grunted wearily, and to the other two he said, “We’ll get a bite of something and cut our way into the hold and trim that salt. Then when it eases off, we’ll get some sail on her and get her in.” The others nodded gloomily, and they all went forward to the forecastle and ate like starving men.
When Joak brought Donald a cup of coffee, he found him with his head on the table, crying silently. “What’s th’ maitter, Donal’?” he asked, patting his old chum on the shoulder. “Are ye thinkin’ aboot Ainslie?”
The other nodded and looked up with the tears streaming from his tired eyes. “I wonder—if I shouldn’t have taken—the wheel—myself—that time?” he said brokenly.
Jim answered, “No, no, Skipper! It wasn’t any fault of yours. I h’ard ye tell him to lash hisself an’ he couldn’t ha’ done it. It was his fate. Poor lad! I hope he died quick an’ easy. That’s th’ best a feller kin wish. God rest his soul, for he was a good lad!”
McKenzie was only a boy after all and he felt Ainslie’s loss keenly. It was awful to go like that—to be swept into eternity in the twinkling of an eye—and it un-nerved him. He had put in a frightful night and he was feeling the strain, and it wasn’t over yet. The other two—older men and unhampered with responsibility—cheered him up, and when he went on deck again, he felt better and ready to tackle the problems before him.
Breaking into the hold, they trimmed the cargo of salt, and came on deck again when the grey dawn was breaking. The wind had eased off to a moderate gale, but the sea was still running high and the schooner, on an even keel once more, looked a sorry sight in the growing light. Ice filmed rigging and the bulwarks, and everything moveable was gone from the deck—dories, stays’l box and cable box, and the chain was scattered around. The starboard anchor was hove off the rail and inboard, and a splintered stump showed where the main-mast had been, while a gap in the port bulwarks marked the place where it crashed overboard. The foremast stood denuded of sail, with gaff and boom swinging idly and festoons of canvas flapping from them. The halliards were trailing overside, and gleaming ice covered everything.
“She’s rim-racked for sure, Skipper,” grinned Jim, “but she’s still tight. Ain’t no more’n ordinary water when I tried th’ pumps ... good hull to stand th’ bangin’ she’s had this time.”
Donald surveyed the schooner and he said hoarsely, “We’ll work her in. We’ll hoist the riding sail on the foremast, and with that and the jumbo, we’ll get her along. Let’s get busy.”
With the easing off of the gale, McKenzie got the schooner underway again, and after figuring out his position by dead reckoning, he shaped a course for Eastville, and found, even without after-canvas that she would lay it. Eastville Harbor was their nearest port, and he was anxious to get Sanders ashore and into a doctor’s hands.