Well, there were half a score smashed fingers, a few severe bruises, several poisoned hands, a crushed foot, and many minor ailments caused by the incessant cold, hunger, and labour. Ten men should have been sent home; one died at sea; ten more might have saved their berths if they could have had a week of rest and proper treatment. My hero was downcast, but his depression only gave edge and vigour to his resolution in the end. He had learned the efficacy of prayer now—prayer to a loving and all-powerful Father; and he always had an assured sense of protection and comfort when he had told his plain tale and released his heart. I, the writer, should have smiled at him in those days, but I am not so sure that I could smile with confidence now.
Lennard stuck to his favourite with helpful gallantry, and became so skilled a nurse that Ferrier was always content to leave him in charge. Both men tried to cheer each other; both were sick for home, and there is no use in disguising the fact. When Ferrier one day came across the simple lines—
"Perhaps the selfsame song has found a path
To the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home,
She stood in tears amid the alien corn,"
he came near to imitating Ruth. He knew his duty well enough, but the affections and the spirit are strong. Then the almost ceaseless bad weather, and the many squalid conditions of life, were wearing to body and soul.
An abominable day broke soon after Frank had sailed for home, and a sea got up which threatened to shake the spars out of our smack. Half a gale blew; then a whole gale; then a semi-hurricane, and at last all the ships had to take in the fourth reef in the mainsail. The two Samaritans were squatting on the floor in the cabin (after they had nailed canvas strips across the sides of the berths to prevent the patients from falling out), for no muscular power on earth could have enabled its possessor to keep his place on a high seat in that maddening jump. It was enough to jerk the pipe from one's mouth. The deck was all the time in a smother of half-frozen slush, and the seas were so wall-sided that the said slush fell in great plumps from side to side with a force which plucked the men off their legs several times. Again and again it appeared as if the smack must fall off the sides of the steep seas, as the long screw colliers sometimes do in the Bay of Biscay when the three crossing drifts meet. It was a heartbreaking day, and, at the very worst, a smack bore down as if he meant to come right into the Mission vessel. Sweeping under the lee and stopping his vessel, the smack's skipper hailed. "Got the doctor on board?" Down went the newcomer into the trough, leaving just a glimpse of his truck. Up again with a rolling wave. "Yes. What's up?"
"We've got a man dying here, and not one of my white-livered hounds will go in the small boat."
"Can't you persuade them?"
"No. They'll forfeit their voyage first."