Part 6

“‘Oh, I’ll drive her.’ I threw it back in his teeth that way, spat to looard, took a fresh hold of the wheel, and did drive her just to let him know he couldn’t scare me. Cripes, but I gave her all she wanted!

“It was wicked, though, the way she was going. She warn’t a big sailer, the _Cromwell_-- George Hoodley never did believe in the racing kind--but any old plug could’ve sailed that night. Along toward midnight it got thick o’ snow, I mind, and we came near running into a vessel hove-to under a fores’l. ‘A fisherman!’ Dan for’ard called out, and as we shot by her a warning hail came to us.

“‘What’s that he said?’ asked the Skipper of Dan.

“‘Something about where we’re bound for,’ answered Dan.

“‘That so? What’s it of his business?’ and went below for a spell.

“From the wheel I could see him taking another drink under the cabin light. He had got to where he wasn’t bothering to pour it into a mug, but took it straight from the bottle--long pulls, too. He came on deck again just as my watch and Dan’s was up. To Charlie Feeney, who was next man to the wheel, I said that the Skipper ought to be spoken to about hauling her up. So Charlie did.

“‘Who in the devil’s name is skipper of this vessel, anyway?’ was all the answer he got.

“Henry Carsick, who was Charlie’s dory-mate, said he didn’t know what to make of it. ‘I’m blessed if ever I knew him to carry half this sail in a breeze before, and I’ve been with him three years,’ said he to me as he went for’ard.

“Well, Dan and me hadn’t more than got off our oilskins after standing watch, when a hail came from Henry on watch for’ard. ‘Some kind of a roaring ahead of us,’ repeated Charlie from the wheel. And just then it was that, leaping like a hound, she hit something good and hard--a check, a grinding along her bottom, a rearing of her bow. But nothing small was going to stop her the clip she was going then, and whatever it was, she was clear of it. By that time the whole crew was tumbling up on deck. ‘God in heaven, what is it?’ they called out one to another. Another leap of her, and it was clear white astern and on either side. ‘A wall of rock ahead!’ said Henry Carsick, and came tumbling aft--‘a ledge of solid rock, Skipper!’

“‘Yes,’ said the Skipper, in a kind of studyin’ tone--‘and it _was_ hell or Gloucester, warn’t it’--he turned to me. ‘I said it’d be, didn’t I?’

“‘That’s what you did,’ said I, ‘and it ain’t Gloucester. You ought to be proud of yourself--nineteen men, maybe, lost for you--nineteen men. I’m not counting yourself--you ought to be lost. Will we put a dory over?’

“‘Put it over, if you want to. Do what you please. I’m done with this vessel-- I’m done with fishing.’

“‘I guess that’s right,’ says I. ‘And I guess you ain’t th’ only one that gets through with fishing to-night.’ Then I turned to the crew: ‘What d’y’ say if we try and get a dory over and see what’s around us?’

“They said all right, and we unhooked the tackles. A few heaves, and up went the dory into the air. It hung there for a second or two. We tried to push it over, but the wind took it, tore it from us and dropped it into the sea. The sea took it, tossed it up and back against the rail and on to the deck. One smash--another--another--and it was kindling-wood.

“‘Try another,’ said Dan, who was standing by the rail to his waist in water. He had a line about his waist, and that was all kept him inboard. We hoisted another dory out of the nest, and we had to fight, even as we were hoisting, for a footing on her deck, it was that steep and the great seas running clean over her. Up into the air we hoisted the second dory--up and out again. Once more the howling wind and the boiling sea took it--once more ’twas kindling-wood.

“‘There’s seven more left--try another,’ said Dan. A great man, Dan. If I go to sea for forty years I never expect to see a better-- I could ’most cry when I think of how he was lost that night.

“‘One of my hands mashed to a pulp,’ said somebody.

“‘Well, we can’t stop to doctor you,’ I called to him. ‘Let somebody take your place at the tayckles. Now then, lads. I don’t know that it’ll do any good when we do get it over, but maybe we c’n take a look around--maybe find a landing-place somewheres.’

“‘I’ll go in her,’ calls out someone. ‘Give me a chance now----’

“‘My chance,’ said Dan--‘my chance, ain’t it, Martin?’

“‘Yes,’ says I to Dan, and looking back at it now I say, ‘God forgive you, Martin Carr,’ and yet ’twarn’t no fault of mine.

“Out went the dory, and when she hung for a second Dan swung himself after it. He made it, and called, ‘Pay out that line!’ and dug in with the oars. We could just see him. We were still paying out the line, we could still hear his voice, when ‘Haul in! I broke an oar!’ he called.

“‘Haul in!’ said I; but when we went to haul in there was nothing to haul--the line had parted.

“‘God, he’s gone!’ said somebody.

“‘That’s what he is,’ said a voice beside me--‘I was bound he would be.’

“’Twas the Skipper. From by the rail he crept up to me with a knife-blade shining--a bait-knife it was, the same he’d had all night. And then I knew what it meant--he had cut the line. I stood away from him first, then I grabbed him and picked him up, and had a mind to heave him over the rail, and then-- I don’t know why-- I didn’t. I dropped him on the deck. ‘You’ll get yours before this night’s over,’ I said.

“‘A devil of a lot I care,’ he said.

“The rest of them, or at least those that warn’t too busy with the next dory or trying to look out for themselves, called out to ask what was wrong with the two of us. I didn’t answer, nor did the Skipper.

“Dan was the first to go that night. We kept trying to launch dories--trying, but losing them--smashed to kindling-wood they were, until the whole nine of them were gone. During that time four men were washed over. One, with a line about him, made a desperate try, but was hauled back dead, I mind. We laid his body on the house, and afterward, when I went to look for it, it was gone--swept over. The seas were wicked.

“The wind was blowing harder, the big combers were coming even higher, and the gang began to be washed off her deck and lost one after the other. We took to the rigging when we saw ’twarn’t any more use on deck. And in the middle of it all, what d’y’ think the Skipper did? What d’y’ think he did, the man that was the cause of it all? Well, while his crew were going--to heaven or hell, as it might be--washed over and lost, one after the other--he goes below and has a mug-up for himself. Yes, sir, goes into the forec’s’le and has a mug of coffee and a piece of pie. Somebody that’d seen him going below called out to the rest of us. The Lord’s truth, that. And the rest of us blasphemed to God, we were that black with rage against him.

“Well, there was ten of us, I think, in the rigging, all hoping to be able to last until daylight, when we thought we might be able to see where we were. Hoping only--’twas not expecting--for ’twas getting colder, with the spray beginning to freeze where it struck and making hard work of holding on to the rigging. ’Twas wild--her sails still up, with the reef points beating a devil’s tattoo where the canvas warn’t tearing up and flying out like long-tailed, ghostly things in the blackness. Lashed to the rigging we must’ve been for all of two hours, I cal’late. Some began to take note of the numbness creeping over them--one or two--the most discouraged. The warmer-blooded, or the strongest, tried to keep up a cheering talk--tried to crack jokes and one thing or another.

“Well, we had hope, some of us, of lasting through the night, when crack! We knew what was coming then. I slipped the half-hitch that had been holding me to the shrouds and climbed higher. I was ’most to the mast-head, clear of the gaff, when over the side went her forem’st, half a dozen men clinging to the forerigging, a-swaying and shaking; and after it went the mainm’st, with four more, I think, in her rigging.

“Well, sir, when the forem’st went I was thrown into clear water. I had plenty of line to my hand, with a turn of it around the mast-head, and with that I hauled myself back. I hung on to an arm of the cross-trees for a while there before I started to work my way back along the mast toward the vessel. I didn’t believe then I’d ever live to reach the vessel. The sail, as I said, had been kept standing on her, and now it was lying flat on the water, now sagging down with the weight of the water over it, and now bellying into the air when a great sea would get under it. I saw a shadow of a man--hanging on to a reef point he was--go down with that sail once, then go up with it once, and then the sail split under the weight of the sea, and I never saw him again. But I heard him holler as he went. What he said I don’t know-- I had to keep on crawling. The hoops of the sail were around the mast, of course, and I used them and the bolt-rope of the fores’l where the sail was torn away to pull myself along. And, mind you, I had to watch out for the forem’st itself. It reared and tossed with one sea after another--me astride it most of the time--like a man on horseback, though hard riding enough I found it. The least little tap of that, and I knew where I’d be--bait for the fishes that I’d baited for so often. Well, between the hoops and the bolt-rope and the rigging I hauled myself along. And the way that mast rolled! Forty times I swear I thought I was good as dead. But no. And so I dragged myself along, watching out when I went upon the crests and holding my breath when I was pulled down into the depths--hung on desperately, mindful that the quietest knock of that big spar would end me then and there, and mindful, too, that once my grip loosed I’d be swallowed up in the roaring. Tired I was, aye, and weak, but I kept on working toward the vessel’s hull always.

“Against the white sails and white foam I made out two others struggling like myself. ‘That you, Bill?’ said one. ‘Yes--that you, Mike?’ I heard from the other. I knew who they were then, and called out myself. Between two seas one slipped from sight. The other still crept on. ‘That you, Bill?’ I called out. ‘Bill’s gone,’ said the voice. ’Twas Mike Cannon. ‘That’s tough,’ I said. ‘It is that,’ says Mike, ‘after the fight he put up. But how’re you making out yourself?’ ‘Pretty good; how’re you?’ I said. ‘Kind of tired. I doubt if I’ll hold out much longer--something smashed inside my oilskins. My chest and a few ribs, I think--and one arm, too. A wild night and tough going, Martin.’

“There was no more chance to talk. Two awful seas followed, and after the second a quiet spell--the back suction. I looked around. I thought I saw Mike, but warn’t sure. I guess now I didn’t, for another sea, the biggest of all, tossed the whole lot of wreckage back against the hull of the _Cromwell_. There was a grinding and a battering as the spars met the hull. Myself up in the air, I looked down and found myself over her deck, and then--my guardian angel it must’ve been that whispered me then-- I let go. ‘God in heaven!’ I found myself saying, and fetched up on her deck, the luckiest man in all the North Atlantic.

“Against what was left of the rail I found myself, close to the balance of the forerigging. At first I warn’t sure just where I was at all, but that’s where I found myself when my eyes were clear to see again. And when my eyes were clear I looked around. The hull of her was heaving to every sea, moving inshore maybe a foot at a time, with her bowsprit pointing to a shadow of rock or cliff ahead. I looked around again, and, so far as I could make out, everything--house, gurry-kids, booby-hatches, everything--was gone off her. Only the two stumps of her masts seemed to be left on deck. But, no--the forec’s’le hatch was left. Her bow, being so much higher than her stern, saved that. I saw that, and-- I don’t know why--toward the forec’s’le I crawled. The hatches were closed. I slid them back. Down the steps I went, and when I was below-- I don’t know why, either-- I thought of the razors in my bunk. I might’s well get them couple of razors, I says to myself, and starts for my bunk, which was in the peak--the same bunk, clear for’ard on the starb’d side, that the Turkish-bath lad is in now. ’Twas like swimming down there. The water by the butt of the forem’st, ’bout like where I’m sitting here to-night, was over my waist. I couldn’t help thinking then how deep ’twas, and getting deeper fast, with the seas pouring down the companionway. I was thinking of that--thinking I ought to’ve closed the hatches after me--and was looking back toward the steps, when I heard a little noise, or thought I did, for the pounding of the seas overhead was making an awful racket and I warn’t sure. But I heard it again, the clinking of crockery like, and I looked around--back behind the steps--at last, and there, behind the stove, leaning up against the cook’s lockers-- I’d clean forgot him--was the Skipper. He was having another mug-up for himself.

“‘God! ‘I said, ‘you here?’

“He half-turned, dropping a coffee mug he had in his hand. Then taking a second look: ‘Man, but I thought it was the ghost of Dan Spring. But you two look something alike. Come to think, you’re cousins, ain’t you? Man, if you could only see yourself! Blood, blood, and bruises--and your eyes, man--your eyes! But have a mug of coffee. Warn’t it lucky? here’s the coffee-boiler hove up here on the lockers, and some coffee still left in it--and hot. And there’s a pie in the grub locker--on the top shelf. If it’d been on the bottom shelf it’d be all wet and floating around. Ain’t that luck? And look here--a good half pint of whiskey left yet! It’s been an awful night, ain’t it? What d’y’ say?”

“He held the bottle toward me. I took it from him and smashed it on the stove. And then I gave him a bit of my mind. ‘And so, George Hoodley, you’re so afraid, after all, to go to your death that you must go drunk, hah? The soul that the Lord gave you--that soul is going from a drunken body straight to the God that’s going to judge you. And how’ll you be judged, d’y’ think, for this night’s work, George Hoodley? Could you listen to what was said on deck to-night and not die of fright at what you’ve done? Did you hear Sam Catiss? “I’m not afraid to go, if go I must,” says Sam, “but, Lord, there’s one or two things I wish I hadn’t done,” says Sam. You heard him--we all

heard him--and then he was swept over. And but for you, George Hoodley, maybe he’d have had time to make his peace before he went. And up in the rigging--you warn’t there, I know--even you, if you’d heard what Peter Harkins said when we all knew her spars were going--when Peter heard the first crack and knew what it meant; and knowing he was going, with his last free breath he said things of you that if I had an enemy I wouldn’t want him to hear--not if I hated him bad enough to want to see him in the bottom of the deepest, hottest hold of hell----’

“‘Hell!’ he breaks in--‘there ain’t no hell--nor heaven, nor God, nor anything.’

“‘God forgive you for that! You----’

“‘God forgive me? Martin, you talk like an old woman. I tell you, since I was no higher than one of my jack-boots I’ve been listening to talk of hell and heaven--mostly hell, though--and I used to believe it one time. Nobody believed it any more than I did till when--till I began to see that the very people that was talking it so hard warn’t governed by what they said. What they wanted was everybody else to be governed by what they preached. I tell you I know. I’ve seen it in my own people-- I know them better than you do. It’s years now-- I was one of the fools, one that never let anybody, I thought, get the best of me at anything. You’re one--though you’re a good man in your fool way, Martin. I had no grudge against you, not even when I tried to lose you in the dory. But I had to get rid of your dory-mate.’

“‘Get rid of Dan? And why Dan?’

“‘Why? There again! You mean to tell me you don’t know?... I looked around before I went out this trip. Nobody’d tell me, but I knew his first name was Dan-- Dan something. One day, when the crew was out hauling the trawls, I rummaged his bunk and found part of a letter in my wife’s writing under his mattress. That was the same day I ran over Dan and you in the dory. ’Twas for that chance I’d been pretending my ankle warn’t better. Weak ankle, bah!’ He drove the bad foot against the stove and crushed in the oven door. ‘Anything weak about that foot!--bah! “Dear Dan,” the note read-- I know my wife’s handwriting, and his name’s Dan.’

“‘Wait a bit--wait a bit. How do you know it was this Dan? Are there no other Dans in Gloucester?’

“‘How do I know? And it in his bunk--under the mattress in his bunk.’

“‘That’s all right. And whose bunk was it before Dan Spring got it? Another Dan’s, warn’t it-- Dan Powell’s? And didn’t he leave the mattress behind him when he left this vessel, trip before last? Didn’t he? And warn’t Dan Powell just the kind of a man that’d do a thing like that, and not Dan Spring, my own cousin? And so that’s the bottom of it? Nineteen souls gone because you thought--just thought only--that one of them was fooling you. And for a woman that warn’t worth Dan Spring’s little finger. That’s the truth, George Hoodley. But if you’d been brought up different, if you’d studied to understand the good side of people, instead of the other side, and how to get the best of them and to make money out of them and save it, you both might’ve come safe out of it. But you warn’t that kind. ’Twarn’t in your blood, nor in none of your people. Wrong’s wrong-- I got nothing to say about that--but human nature’s human nature. Why should you expect, George Hoodley, to get the fine things in life? Why warn’t you content with money? You’d earned that. What had you to offer a handsome young woman that liked a good time? What had you, even supposing she was the kind you could trust--anything that women love? Not a blessed thing. You’ve spent your life with about one idea in your head, and that idea had nothing to do with being pleasant or kind to others, or good to anybody but yourself. Miles away from the kind of thing that women love were you all the time. You come to nigh fifty year of age--you, with your hard face and hard mouth, and eyes like-- God! like a dead fish’s eyes to-night, no less--don’t you know that whoever was going to marry you warn’t going to for love? You had a right to marry some lean old sour-mouthed spinster with a little money like yourself. What made you think that beauty and love was for you? But even in marrying you thought to make a good bargain--and got fooled. And by the daughter of a man of your own kind, too. D’y’ s’pose her father didn’t know? God help you, George Hoodley, ’twas him hooked you--’twas him made the good bargain, not you. Why, before ever you married her ’twas common talk she warn’t the girl for any man to trust. But what good is it to talk of that now? Nineteen men gone, for I don’t count you--you’re no man. You’re a-- But I won’t say it. Lord, but I’m tempted to choke you where you stand. Only when I think of those fine men--and poor Dan Spring----”

“‘Dan Spring? Don’t tell me ’twarn’t Dan Spring, the----’

“‘Hold up,’ I says to that--‘hold up, or close as we both are to death now and soon to go, I’ll choke you where you stand-- I’ll send you to your God, or to the devil, with the print of my fingers around your turkey gobbler’s throat, if you say aught of Dan. Dan was my own kind and I knew him. Whatever faults he had--and maybe he had some--it warn’t in the heart of Dan Spring to undervalue good women, or to mix with married women of any kind, let alone the wife of a man he was to go ship-mate with. No, sir, not if he didn’t have a wife and children of his own--wife and children that’ll have to suffer all their lives because of you, and never know what brought it all about. But years from now they’ll still be without food and clothing because of you. When I think of it, George Hoodley, I misdoubt they’d count it against me in the other world, where we’ll both be soon with the others, if I was to take you by the throat and wind my fingers around your windpipe, and choke and choke and squeeze and squeeze you till your tongue came out and your eyes popped, and your face got blue and then black, and you----’

“He drew back against the lockers and put his hands before his face. ‘Martin, Martin, don’t!’ he said; for, in truth, I all but had hold of him in spite of myself.

“‘I’m not going to,’ I said. ‘I have enough already to account for. There’s two or three things I wish I hadn’t done, and maybe if I sent you to death a few minutes sooner than you’re going, I’d be sorry for it, too, later on. I’m going on deck now. This vessel won’t last much longer. She’s breaking as it is--and up to our chests in water here now.’

“Well, all the time we were below the big seas never let up. Some of her outside planks were working loose from their frames when I left him to go on deck again. Her deck planking, too, was coming apart. I almost fell into her hold when I was coming out of the forec’s’le. I didn’t know what to do quite, but climbed up on toward her bow at last, hanging on where I could, dodging seas and the loose bits of wreck they were carrying with them. At the knight-heads I looked around and ahead. Astern and to either side ’twas nothing but rocks and the white sea beating over them. Ahead I could make out a wall of rock-- I guessed where I was--to the west’ard of Canso, off Whitehead. I knew that coast, and a bad coast it was. Up on the bowsprit, crawling out with the help of the footropes and the stops hanging down and the wreck of the jib and stays, I began to think I had a chance--if I could only live till the daylight that was coming on. I climbed farther out. Hard work it was, and I soon cast off my boots. At the end of the bowsprit I got a better look. A dozen feet away was the ledge with a chance for a footing. If a man could jump that--but what man could, from a vessel’s bowsprit? But now and then, perhaps every minute or so, the bowsprit, under a more than average big sea, lifted and sagged a little nearer the cliff. At the right time a man might make the leap, I thought. But if he missed? I looked down with the thought and saw nothing but rocks and a white boiling below. ‘If you miss, Martin,’ I said to myself, ‘maybe you’ll live five seconds, maybe ten--but more likely maybe you’d keep clear of being mashed to jelly for just about a wink of your eye.’ And ’twas enough to make a man wink his eyes just to look at the white boiling hell beneath. I cast off my oilskin jacket while I was thinking of it, and then my oil pants. After that went my jersey, flannel shirt, and trousers. I meant to have a good try at it, anyway.

“Looking back before I should leap, who did I see but the Skipper. In the noise of the sea I had not heard him. He, too, had cast off his boots and was even then unbuttoning his oilskins. He must’ve known I was watching him, for he said, ‘Don’t throw me off, Martin--don’t!’

“‘Who’s going to?’ I asked.

“‘That’s right--don’t. Give me a chance now, Martin.’

“‘Like you gave your crew?’

“‘Oh, don’t, Martin--don’t! I was crazy. All that I said about not believing in God and hell, I didn’t mean that. I’m afraid of it--afraid. I was always afraid of it, but never like now, Martin--never so afraid of the burning pit as now--never, never. Help me up, Martin-- I’m weak-- I can hardly stand. Help me, won’t you, Martin? You’re twice the man I am--no man ever sailed with me had your strength, Martin. Help me, won’t you, Martin?’