The tribulations which clustered, in bee-like swarm, in and around the Gulf Rock Lighthouse during those weary hours were many and various. Damp clothing, insufficiency of food, interior temperatures ranging from the chill draught of the entrance passage and stair-ways to the partial suffocation of rooms with windows closed owing to the incursions of the rising tide—this unpleasing aggregate of physical misery was seriously augmented by an ever-increasing list of sick people, an almost total absence of any medical comforts, and a growing knowledge, on the part of those not too despondent to think, that their ultimate relief might be deferred for days rather than hours.
No mere man can understand, and a woman of ordinary experience can but dimly imagine, the difficulty and arduousness of the task undertaken by Constance and Enid.
To cook and supply food for eighty-one persons with utensils intended for the use of three, to give each separate individual an utterly inadequate portion, so skilfully distributed that none should have cause to grumble at his or her neighbor's better fortune—here were culinary problems at once complex and exhaustive.
By adopting fantastic devices, bringing into service empty jam-pots and sardine-tins, they found it was possible to feed twenty at a time. This meant the preparation of four distinct meals, each requiring an hour's work. Long before the last batch, which included themselves, was lamenting the absurd discrepancy between appetite and antidote in the shape of anything to eat, the first was ravenous again.
The women complained the least. In the occupants of the two bedrooms the girls encountered a passive fortitude which was admirable. It was an extraordinary scene which met their eyes when they entered either of these stuffy apartments. Many of the rescued ladies had not given a thought to changing the demi-toilette of evening wear on board ship for more serviceable clothing when the hurricane overtook the vessel. They all, it is true, possessed cloaks or wraps of some sort, but these garments were still sodden with salt water and therefore unwearable, even if the oppressive warmth in each room rendered such a thing possible. Their elegant costumes of muslin, cotton, silk or satin, were utterly ruined. Lucky were the few whose blouses or bodices had not been rent into tatters.
Some of the worst sufferers in this respect were now the best provided. Blankets and sheets had been ruthlessly torn up and roughly stitched into articles of clothing. Mrs. Vansittart, for instance, who first suggested this via media, wore an exquisite Paris gown and a loose dressing-jacket arrangement of yellow blanket, the component parts of which she persuaded two other women to sew together on the model provided by her own elegant figure.
A few quick-witted ones who followed her example exhausted the available stock, and pillow-cases and rugs would have undergone metamorphosis in the same way had not Constance come to the rescue by impounding them, declaring that they must be reserved for the use of those sufferers who needed warmth and rest.
The men passed their time in smoking, singing, yarning and speculating on the chance of the weather clearing. Ultimately, when the banging of the waves again made the column feel unsafe, a small section began to plan petty attempts to pilfer the provisions. It is the queer mixture of philosopher and beast in the average human being that makes it possible for the same man, in one mood, to risk his life quite voluntarily to save others, and in another, to organize selfish theft.
After an ingenious seaman had been detected in the attempt to pick the store-room lock, and when a tray of cold ham was deliberately upset whilst a football scrimmage took place for the pieces, Mr. Emmett stopped these ebullitions by arming the watch with assorted weapons from the work-shop and issuing stern orders as to their use in case of need.
Here, again, the warring elements which form the human clay were admirably displayed. On duty, under the bonds of discipline, the coarse-grained foremast hand who had gobbled up a surreptitious lump of fat pig during the first successful scuffle would brain the daring rascal who tried to better his condition by a similar trick a second time. Discipline, sometimes, converts a skulker into a hero.