The Deep Sea's Toll

by James B. Connolly

How Oddie ever expected to save the Delia nobody ever knew, beyond trying to lift her across with the sheer weight of the wind to her sails. And that would be sheer luck, such luck as had never befallen a vessel in their plight before. Other men of courage with stout vessels must have tried that, they knew, and none of them had ever got over, nor come back to tell how close they came to it.

And that was all there was to it—sheer luck, Oddie would have told them, had they asked him. And yet it was not luck altogether. True, he knew no channel across—there was no channel across—and yet he knew there were little gullies scooped out here and there on the sand-ridges. And if a man could make one now and one again, jumping over the almost dry beach, as it were, between them—who knows?—it might be done. On a black night like this nobody could see the gullies, or on any kind of a night, for that matter; but then there was that something—he did not know what to call it—inside of him that told him the things he could not hear nor see nor feel. And then again, let a vessel alone, and she will naturally shy for the deep water. Force her with the rudder, and she will go where the rudder sends her. Oddie forced her, but only to make her take the full weight of the wind. It was necessary to drive her over if ever she was to get over at all. That same something inside told him when her nose was nearing the high shoals—it came to him as if her quivering planks carried the message; there it was, put her off now, and now again, now hold her that the wind may have its lifting effect, now let her go and she’ll find the way. That was the way of it—bang, bang, bang, on her side mostly, with her planks smashing against the bare bottom as she drove over the sand-ridges—her stem rushing through at an awful clip when she found a gully a little deeper than usual.

The great seas broached over her, and it became dangerous to remain on deck. So Oddie ordered all hands below and the slides drawn tight after them, fore and aft.

“I don’t see the difference whether we’re washed off up here or drowned below,” said one. “Go below, just the same,” said Oddie, and below they all went, while Oddie, lashing himself hard and fast, prepared for what further fury wind and sea had in store for himself and the Delia.

It was a sea to batter a lighthouse down. It takes shoal water for wicked seas, and this certainly was shoal water, with the sand off bottom swirling around deck. A noble vessel was the Delia, but when the sea took charge that night everything was swept clean from her decks. Dories first—her own eight and the four of the Eldorado’s that had been picked up, twelve in all—went with one smash. Oddie allowed himself a little pang as he watched them and heard the crash. It was too dark to see them clearly; but he knew how they looked, floating off in the white combers in kindling-wood. The booby-hatches went next, and after them the gurry-kids—match-wood all. Everything that was not bolted went. The very rails went at last, crackling from the stanchions as if they were cigar-box sides when they did go.

“‘Twill be the house next,” muttered Oddie. “And then her planks will come wide apart—and then——” He rolled it between his teeth. “Well, then we’ll all go together. But”—he locked his jaws again—“drive her you must, Patsie Oddie,” and bang, bang, smash, bang, and smash again he held her to it.

And in the morning she came clear; still an awful sea on and wind to tear the heart out of the ocean itself, but clear water—beautiful, clear water. By the morning light he saw what he could not see in the dark night, that her port anchor was gone from her bow—scraped off against the bottom—and that her decks were covered with the sand off the bottom also; but she herself—his darling Delia—was all right. There was nothing gone that could not be replaced—maybe a bit loose in the seams, but, Lord, Gloucester was full of good calkers—and now they had the beautiful clear water. God be praised! And, after all, if never a woman in all the world smiled on him again, ’twas worth while saving men’s lives.

Oddie drew the slide back from the cabin companion-way. “Set the watch,” he called, and the first on watch, Martin Carr, came up and took the wheel from him.

“Gloucester,” said Oddie—“you know the course, Martin. And be easy on her. ’Tisn’t in nature for a vessel not to loosen a bit after last night, but there’ll be nothing the pumps won’t clear. I know that by the heave of her under me. She’s all right, Martin—a great vessel. We owe our lives to her ableness this night, but pump her out,” and went below to draw off his boots. His legs were so swollen that he had to split the leather from knee to heel to get them off, and when he turned them upside down sand ran out of the legs of them. “A wild night,” he said, and looked curiously at the sand—a wild night it was—“and I’m tired. Since leavin’ Gloucester I’ve not seen my bunk. Call me in two hours,” and turned in on the floor and fell instantly asleep.

After a storm it should be good to see the fine green water rippling again under the sun, but to Patsie Oddie it brought no sense of joy. He only glowered and glowered as down the coast he sailed the Delia. Even the sight of Cape Sable, which generally brings a smile to the faces of fishermen homeward bound, had no effect on him. He drove her on, and even seemed to welcome the cold nor’-wester that met him when he straightened out for what in a fair wind, and his vessel tight, would have been one long last riotous leg.