The Deep Sea's Toll

by James B. Connolly

“‘Jump, man, jump afore you lose your nerve entirely,’ I hollers.

“He threw the line to me, after taking one end of it around his waist. The other end I took around my waist, my end half hitched so I could slip it in a hurry. I warn’t throwing my life away for him, if I knew it.

“Well, he jumped at last. And the bowsprit rose full as high and gave him full as good a chance as I’d got. But even so he fell a little short. His feet only caught the edge of the shelf. He staggered, and seeing how it was, I braced my feet well as I could and hauled. He came in, sagged away, I bracing my feet—they were slipping. In a crack in the rock of the ledge I dug the fingers of one hand, the other hand to the line, and hung on. We were gaining; he was fairly on his feet, and I felt the strain easing, when a sea that swept up the side of the cliff like a tidal wave took him clear of everything. It would have swept me, too, but I gripped where I could get a hold, with the fingers of my one loose hand in the crack in the rocks, and hung on there—one hand to the crack and the other to the line—hung on so, supporting the weight of myself and the Skipper, until I felt my muscles getting hot and heavy and my breath coming fast. He was floundering somewhere on the edge of the cliff. I hollered to him, though feeling almost certain he was battered to pieces by then—‘How is it with you, George—how is it, man?’ but there was no answer. Again I hollered, and again no answer. And then, when I was satisfied that it was only the last ounce of strength I had left, I called out, ‘Help yourself, George—why don’t you help yourself?’ No answer. Once more I called, and once more getting no answer, I knew then he must’ve been beaten to death against the rocks, and that ’twas his dead weight was hanging to me. And yet I called once more to make sure. But still getting no answer, ‘The Lord have mercy on your soul, George Hoodley,’ I said, and let slip the line.”

Toward the end of Martin’s story it had become very quiet in the forec’s’le. Nobody said anything, neither broke in with a question nor offered any comment, until after a long silence, and then not until after Martin himself had repeated absently, as if to himself, and after a long indrawn breath, “And then I let slip the line.” Only then did he look around and seem to realize that he was not on the ledge off Whitehead.

“And after you cast off the line, what then, Martin?”

“Well,” resumed Martin, “the weight being gone made a great difference to me, but it was quite a while before I could stand on my feet. Even then I didn’t have the courage to look down right away, but climbing to one side to the very top of the cliff, I laid flat on my stomach and looked over the edge. ’Twas good light then, and I could see the body of George Hoodley below—tossing about like an eggshell, as if ’twas no more than sea-weed in a sea-way. And that was the end of it. Even if he warn’t dead at the time—even if he warn’t dead when I let go the line and it had to be me or him, it ought to’ve been him. If it was a friend, now—if it was Dan, say— I don’t know what I would do. I hope I’d have the strength not to cast loose the line.”

It was very quiet again. The boot-heels of the new watch on deck, the rasping of the booms as the vessel jibed, the whistle of the rising gale, the slap of the sea outside them, the Skipper’s voice on deck, the atmosphere, stirred Martin again. “’Twas a night like this we swung the Cromwell off to the west’ard. I shouldn’t wonder but what he’d be takin’ the mains’l off her soon, won’t he?”—this to the old watch, who had just come down the companion-way and was wringing his mitts out by the stove.

“The mains’l, Martin?” repeated the watch in surprise. “Why, the mains’l’s been off her for hours—she’s under a trys’l and jumbo.”

“The mains’l, Martin,” explained one, “was taken off her just after you and Johnnie were taken aboard. You were pretty tired and didn’t notice, maybe, at the time.”

“Lord, I must’ve been tired—not to know it when the mains’l’s taken off a vessel I’m in. There was never a minute the night the Cromwell was lost that I was tired as that. No, sir, not even when I laid on the cliff in the morning and looked down for George Hoodley’s body.”