West Wind Drift

by George Barr McCutcheon

“Mr. Landover's letter of credit is good for fifteen thousand if he ever gets back to New York, but it isn't worth fifteen cents here. His life is insured for one million dollars, I am told. I don't know who the beneficiaries are, but, whoever they are, they are going to put in a claim for the million if he doesn't show up in New York pretty shortly. He is going to be declared officially dead, and so are all the rest of us, after a reasonable time has elapsed. Now, I don't say that we are never going to be rescued. We may be found inside of a month. Some of us don't quite realize the fix we are in. Mr. Codge, the purser, was saying a little while ago that a lady from the first cabin nearly took his head off when he told her it was impossible to send a cable message to her people in Boston. A number of passengers have already demanded that their passage money be refunded.

“You have doubtless heard how I came to be on board this steamer. I am a stowaway. I have no standing among you. I haven't a penny in my pocket,—aside from a luck-piece that doesn't belong to me. I wanted to get back to the States so that I could carry a gun or something over in France. I wanted to fight for my country. I wasn't thinking very much about my life when I started for home and France, but I want to say that I'm thinking about it now. I don't intend to starve or freeze to death if I can help it. I am going to fight for my life, not for my country.

“This is no time to be sentimental. It is no time to sit down and pity ourselves or each other. God knows I am just as sorry for myself as you are for yourselves, but that isn't going to get me anywhere. We've got to work. That means all of us. It means the women as well as the men. It means the women with soft, white hands and the men who never did a stroke of manual labour in their lives, just as much as it means the people who have never done anything else but work. Something will be found for every one of us to do, and, ladies and gentlemen, we will have to do it without whining.

“Captain Trigger is accountable for the cargo on board this ship. Naturally he is opposed to our confiscating anything that has been entrusted to him for safe delivery. He takes a very sensible attitude, however. He will officially protest against the removal of anything from the hold of his vessel, but he will not employ force to resist us when we begin to land stores, foodstuffs and all that sort of thing. He understands the situation perfectly.

“Now, here is what we will have to do. We must select a site for our camp,—or town, you may well say,—and we must build upon it without delay. That is to be our first step. Details will come later. There are over six hundred of us here. We represent a fair-sized village. We have mechanics, carpenters, farmers, surveyors, masons,—and merchants, to say nothing of cooks, housekeepers, and so on. The ship contains all sorts of tools to work with, canvas for temporary quarters, beds and bedding, cooking utensils,—in fact, we have everything that Robinson Crusoe didn't have, and besides all that, we've got each other. We are not alone on a desert island. We are, my friends, as well off as the Pilgrims who landed on Plymouth Rock, and we are better off than the hardy colonists who laid the foundation for the country that flies that flag up there. Centuries ago bold adventurers set out to discover unknown lands. They were few in number and poorly equipped. But they ventured into the wilderness and built villages that grew to be cities. They went through a thousand hardships that we will never know, and they survived.

“Captain Trigger and the others selected me to make this talk to you because I have had some practical experience in establishing and developing a camp, such as we will have to build. Experience has taught me one thing above all others: work, hard work of a constructive nature, is our only salvation. Unless we occupy ourselves from one day's end to another in good, hard, honest toil, we will all go mad. That's the long and the short of it. If we sat still on this boat for thirty days, doing nothing, we'd lose our minds. There isn't a man in this crowd, I am sure, who wouldn't work his head off to spare the women an hour of hardship. But the greatest hardship you women could possibly know would be idleness. There will be work for every one to do, and we can thank God for it, my friends. We will have to work for nothing. We will have to help each other. There is but one class on this island at present, and that is the working class.

“We've all got people at home waiting for us. By this time the whole world knows that the Doraine is three weeks overdue at Rio Janeiro, and that no word has been had from her. The ocean is being searched. Our friends, our relatives are doing everything in their power to get trace of this lost ship. You may depend on that. In a little while,—a few weeks, at best,—the ship will be given up for lost. We will be counted as dead, all of us. That's a hard, cruel thing for me to say, and I hate to say it,—but we've just got to realize the position we're in. It's best that we should look at it from the worst possible angle. I do not speak jestingly when I say that we may as well consider ourselves dead and forgotten. I am as full of hope and confidence as anybody and I am an optimist if there ever was one, but I don't work on the theory that God takes any better care of an optimist than He does of a pessimist.

“It will require months, maybe years, for us to construct a ship, and even then it will not be big enough to transport all of us. The most we can hope for is a craft that will be stout enough to go out and bring help to the rest of us. I am trying, at Captain Trigger's suggestion, to convince you that we can't build a ship, that we can't expect to get away from this island by our own endeavours, unless we go about it in the proper and sensible way. That means, first of all, that we must safeguard ourselves against time. We've got to live and we've got to keep our strength.

“Mr. Landover has made a very generous proposition. He agrees to give a hundred thousand dollars to any boat's crew that will take one of these lifeboats and make port somewhere. He fails to mention the compensation they are to receive if they never make port. He forgets that this big ship floundered around for a good many days without sighting anything but water. He would have been perfectly safe in offering a hundred million dollars, because he would never be called upon to pay it. I understand, however, that his offer still stands.

“Tomorrow morning surveying parties will be sent ashore to look for a possible site for our town. Volunteers will undertake this work. As soon as possible thereafter a temporary camp will be set up, and practically every one on board will be moved from this ship. Captain Trigger and a few chosen men will remain on board. It is his wish, ladies and gentlemen. He is the captain of the Doraine. He will not leave her. We are all here today, and alive, because Captain Trigger would not leave his ship. We owe our lives to him. This is not the time to propose three cheers for the gallant master of the Doraine. It is not the time to cheer for anybody or for anything. We do not feel like cheering. We've done all the praying that is necessary, we've offered up all the thanksgiving that the situation calls for, so now we've got to roll up our sleeves and go to work.”