But Captain Billings, who was beside me, lifting up my head tenderly with his arm placed round me, shook his head sadly.
“Poor fellow,” he said; “you did your best, but he must have been gone before you reached him. He’s quite dead—you were too late to save him!”
I declare this news affected me more than all I had gone through; and, whether from weakness, or from the reaction after such violent exertion producing a feeling of hysteria, I cannot tell; all I know is, that I turned my face away from the kind-hearted skipper who was supporting me, and cried like a child—I, who thought myself then a man!
Meanwhile, as I found out when I had recovered from my emotion and was able to stand up and look about me, my shipmates had not been idle in trying to retrieve the effects of our unfortunate landing; for which the skipper upbraided his own carelessness, laying the blame on himself, and saying that he ought to have known better than to have tried to rush the boat in with such a ground swell on!
The tow-rope of the jolly-boat had been cast-off shortly before we approached the shore, Captain Billings hailing Mr Macdougall and telling him to bring her head to the sea, and lay off until we got ashore; so, there she was, riding in safety, about half a cable’s length out, beyond reach of the surf, while we were tumbling about in it after the long-boat had upset us so unexpectedly without ceremony.
Mr Macdougall was about to pull in at once, on seeing the contretemps, but the skipper, the moment he fetched the shore, and before I had gone in after Harmer, had directed him still to keep off and get a line ready to heave in, as by that means those in the jolly-boat would not only be able to land in a better way than ourselves, but, also, some portion of the stores of our boat might be recovered, as well as the craft itself—the long-boat having only turned over, and still floating in the midst of the breakers, bobbing up and down bottom upwards.
This task was now being proceeded with by all hands.
Forming again a line, as when they had dragged Pat Doolan and myself out—the men holding each other’s hands, for they had no rope as yet to tackle on to—several articles near in shore had been already picked up; and, now that I was all right again, the skipper at once set about getting the jolly-boat in, besides trying to secure the long-boat.
Each, amongst other necessary parts of his equipment, had been provided with a coil of strong half-inch line, in addition to their proper painters, and on Captain Billings singing out to the first mate, and telling him what to do, the jolly-boat with her six oars manned was backed in just beyond reach of the surf. The end of the line, which Mr Macdougall held ready with a sounding-lead attached to it to make it swing further, was then hove ashore.
It fell short, some ten feet out in the midst of the eddy caused by the backwash, but the leading hand of the long-boat’s crew, after one or two dives in the surf, in which he got knocked down and rolled over, succeeded finally in grasping the sounding-lead.