“Aye! And if us had to—â€� The third member of the crew started a sentence that he was never to finish. The unexpected, unusual, rare accident was upon them. It came with the swiftness of a stroke of forked lightning. The winch-dogs, which worked against cogs, snapped with the vicious sharpness of a high explosive. The whole weight of the warp, the surging ship and the storm was instantly released. The long bars of the winch spun like a huge, malevolent top. The I’ll Try seemed to slip sidewise for a few fathoms and then again to lay over so far that she was in danger of going on her beam ends. She righted herself partially, jerking madly, as if in terror. For a moment there was no sound but the shrilling of the winds through her rigging and the hammering of the billows.
Captain Josh, stunned, dazed, confused, lifted himself from the heap into which he had been thrown against the weather bulwarks, wondered why a red blanket blurred his vision, tried to wipe it away with his left hand and could not for a moment understand why that numbed arm would not respond. It hung limp and broken by his side. His right hand came up and swept away the blood that trickled warmly downward over his eyes and face. And then his senses returned, swift as light through clouds. Horror came with sight.
“My God! My God!� A whimpering voice caught his ears, and he saw the cabin-boy crawling up the slope of the deck toward the companionway, clutching with outspread fingers at the wet planks, while one leg dragged helplessly behind him. Down in the scuppers, with the waters submerging them as they swept the ship’s length, lay two sodden shapes.
But the fighting spirit, the unquenchable bravery of the broken man by the weather bulwarks, tore upward to action. Instantly he caught the rail with his big, uninjured arm, lifted himself to his feet, and lurched and slithered downward to the nearest man, the mate of the I’ll Try, who lay unconscious and half-drowned. He seized the inert form and dragged it back until he could rest it against a hatch from where it could not again roll downward into the wash and make death certain by drowning.
“Stand by, lad! Stand by! Hang on to something for a moment. Us has got to be men now!� he cried to the whimpering boy, and slipped and sprawled downward to seize the body of the ancient one, and laboriously drag it to safety.
“Bob! Get Bob!� screamed the boy. “He went over the port side! I saw hjm go! Thrown, he was—all in the air— thrown like a dead fish—by they winchbars!�
Captain Josh lunged to the port side, clung to the rail and stared outward, releasing his hold only to brush away the trickle of blood that again troublesomely obscured his vision. He could see nothing. He seized the nearest shrouds and dragged himself upward until he perched on the rail; where he stood swaying and peering; but even from that vantage of height he could discern nothing living—only the tearing uplift of the sea, the spume-thrown crests of waves, the murderous swing of the waters. No man could live in that for many minutes, be he sound and strong rather than broken and inert. To seek was useless. And—there was no time to pause if those aboard the I’ll Try, and the ship herself, were to survive. The boy was still wailing and screaming. Captain Josh dropped heavily to the deck, and as he lunged past the boy, shouted: “No use, lad. Poor Bob’s gone. God rest him! Steady now! Steady! Us must be steady if us would live.â€� And hurriedly he sought an ax.
He returned and with his uninjured and still powerful arm fell to hacking the warp whose drag threatened momentarily to end the I’ll Try. The severed ends whipped like giant lashes into the air, and he narrowly escaped a second blow as the ship-end whistled through the air. The wind from its tarred and spraying strands lashed within an inch of his eyes as he instinctively jerked his head backward. The I’ll Try leaped upward, leaned over, sprang free and seemed to fly outward like a tortured wild bird released from captivity. The water on her decks swept in a torrent across to the other side in great sheets. It carried with it loosened objects, and rope-ends that trailed as if eager to follow. The heavy ax with which Captain Josh had cut the imperiling warp was lifted, despite its weight, and vanished overboard in a smother of green. An iron handspike seemed to bound toward freedom, and brought up against the bulwark. The I’ll Try lay far over now, and disregarding the wheel that swung idly to and fro, swept aimlessly before the storm. And even as she disregarded the wheel, Captain Josh disregarded her struggles. He jerked a sodden handkerchief from beneath his sodden jersey, tried to tie it about his bare head with one hand, realized that it was impossible, and hurried to the cabin boy. “Lad,� he said, more quietly and in a voice pitched barely high enough to surmount the tempest’s roar, “’ee have two hands. Help me to bind this up and belay it to my head. I can’t see with all they blood in my eye. Come, be brave, lad. Bind it fast and hard.�
The boy forgot his pain under the influence of that steady old voice, and obeyed. His young fingers trembled at their task; struggled with a simple knot.
“Now,� said Captain Josh, “us must work fast if us are to make port again. I know it’s hard, for ’ee has a hurt foot, I take it; but if us can make port, it’ll heal. Brace up, for if ’ee doan’t, us’ll never again see they harbor lights. All right now?�