"But you must know," said Weeks, perplexed. The wind made a
theological discussion difficult. Weeks curved his hand into a
trumpet, and bawled into Duncan's ear: "You are either saved or not
saved! It's a thing one knows. You must know if you are saved, if
you've felt the glow and illumination of it." He suddenly broke off
into a shout of triumph: "But I got my fish on board the cutter. The
_Willing Mind's_ the on'y boat that did." Then he relapsed again into
melancholy: "But I'm troubled about the poachin'. The temptation was
great, but it wasn't right; and I'm not sure but what this storm ain't
a judgment."
He was silent for a little, and then cheered up. "I tell you what.
Since we're hove-to, we'll have a prayer-meeting in the cabin to-night
and smooth things over."
The meeting was held after tea, by the light of a smoking
paraffin-lamp with a broken chimney. The crew sat round and smoked,
the companion was open, so that the swish of the water and the man on
deck alike joined in the hymns. Rail, the baker's assistant, who had
once been a steady attendant at Revivalist meetings, led off with a
Moody and Sankey hymn, and the crew followed, bawling at the top pitch
of their lungs, with now and then some suggestion of a tune. The
little stuffy cabin rang with the noise. It burst upwards through the
companion-way, loud and earnest and plaintive, and the winds caught
it and carried it over the water, a thin and appealing cry. After the
hymn Weeks prayed aloud, and extempore and most seriously. He
prayed for each member of the crew by name, one by one, taking the
opportunity to mention in detail each fault which he had had to
complain of, and begging that the offender's chastisement might be
light. Of Duncan he spoke in ambiguous terms.
"O Lord!" he prayed, "a strange gentleman, Mr. Duncan, has come
amongst us. O Lord! we do not know as much about Mr. Duncan as You do,
but still bless him, O Lord!" and so he came to himself.
"O Lord! this smack's mine, this little smack labouring in the North
Sea is mine. Through my poachin' and your lovin' kindness it's mine;
and, O Lord, see that it don't cost me dear!" And the crew solemnly
and fervently said "Amen!"
But the smack was to cost him dear. For in the morning Duncan woke to
find himself alone in the cabin. He thrust his head up the companion,
and saw Weeks with a very grey face standing by the lashed wheel.
"Halloa!" said Duncan. "Where's the binnacle?"
"Overboard," said Weeks.
Duncan looked round the deck.
"Where's Willie and the crew?"
"Overboard," said Weeks. "All except Rail! He's below deck forward and
clean daft. Listen and you'll hear 'im. He's singing hymns for those
in peril on the sea."
Duncan stared in disbelief. The skipper's face drove the disbelief out
of him.
"Why didn't you wake me?" he asked.
"What's the use? You want all the sleep you can get, because you an'
me have got to sail my smack into Yarmouth. But I was minded to call
you, lad," he said, with a sort of cry leaping from his throat. "The
wave struck us at about twelve, and it's been mighty lonesome on deck
since with Willie callin' out of the sea. All night he's been callin'
out of the welter of the sea. Funny that I haven't heard Upton or
Deakin, but on'y Willie! All night until daybreak he called, first on
one side of the smack and then on t'other, I don't think I'll tell his
mother that. An' I don't see how I'm to put you on shore in Denmark,
after all."
What had happened Duncan put together from the curt utterances of
Captain Weeks and the crazy lamentations of Rail. Weeks had roused all
hands except Duncan to take the last reef in. They were forward by the
mainmast at the time the wave struck them. Weeks himself was on the
boom, threading the reefing-rope through the eye of the sail. He
shouted "Water!" and the water came on board, carrying the three men
aft. Upton was washed over the taffrail. Weeks threw one end of the
rope down, and Rail and Willie caught it and were swept overboard,
dragging Weeks from the boom on to the deck and jamming him against
the bulwarks.
The captain held on to the rope, setting his feet against the side.
The smack lifted and dropped and tossed, and each movement wrenched
his arms. He could not reach a cleat. Had he moved he would have been
jerked overboard.
"I can't hold you both!" he cried, and then, setting his teeth and
hardening his heart, he addressed his words to his son: "Willie! I
can't hold you both!" and immediately the weight upon the rope was
less. With each drop of the stern the rope slackened, and Weeks
gathered the slack in. He could now afford to move. He made the rope
fast and hauled the one survivor on deck. He looked at him for a
moment. "Thank God, it's not my son!" he had the courage to say.
"And my heart's broke!" had gasped Rail. "Fair broke." And he had gone
forward and sung hymns.
They saw little more of Rall. He came aft and fetched his meals away;
but he was crazed and made a sort of kennel for himself forward, and
the two men left on the smack had enough upon their hands to hinder
them from waiting on him. The gale showed no sign of abatement; the
fleet was scattered; no glimpse of the sun was visible at any time;
and the compass was somewhere at the bottom of the sea.
"We may be making a bit of headway no'th, or a bit of leeway west,"
said Weeks, "or we may be doing a sternboard. All that I'm sure of
is that you and me are one day going to open Gorleston Harbour. This
smack's cost me too dear for me to lose her now. Lucky there's the
tell-tale compass in the cabin to show us the wind hasn't shifted."
All the energy of the man was concentrated upon this wrestle with the
gale for the ownership of the _Willing Mind_; and he imparted his
energy to his companion. They lived upon deck, wet and starved and
perishing with the cold--the cold of December in the North Sea, when
the spray cuts the face like a whip-cord. They ate by snatches when
they could, which was seldom; and they slept by snatches when they
could, which was even less often. And at the end of the fourth day
there came a blinding fall of snow and sleet, which drifted down
the companion, sheeted the ropes with ice, and hung the yards with
icicles, and which made every inch of brass a searing-iron and every
yard of the deck a danger to the foot.
It was when this storm began to fall that Weeks grasped Duncan
fiercely by the shoulder.
"What is it you did on land?" he cried. "Confess it, man! There may be
some chance for us if you go down on your knees and confess it."
Duncan turned as fiercely upon Weeks. Both men were overstrained with
want of food and sleep.
"I'm not your Jonah--don't fancy it! I did nothing on land!"
"Then what did you come out for?"
"What did you? To fight and wrestle for your ship, eh? Well, I came
out to fight and wrestle for my immortal soul, and let it go at that!"
Weeks turned away, and as he turned, slipped on the frozen deck. A
lurch of the smack sent him sliding into the rudder-chains, where he
lay. Once he tried to rise, and fell back. Duncan hauled himself along
the bulwarks to him.
"Hurt?"
"Leg broke. Get me down into the cabin. Lucky there's the tell-tale.
We'll get the _Willing Mind_ berthed by the quay, see if we don't."
That was still his one thought, his one belief.
Duncan hitched a rope round Weeks, underneath his arms, and lowered
him as gently as he could down the companion.
"Lift me on to the table so that my head's just beneath the compass!
Right! Now take a turn with the rope underneath the table, or I'll
roll off. Push an oily under my head, and then go for'ard and see if
you can find a fish-box. Take a look that the wheel's fast."
It seemed to Duncan that the last chance was gone. There was just one
inexperienced amateur to change the sails and steer a seventy-ton
ketch across the North Sea into Yarmouth Roads. He said nothing,
however, of his despair to the indomitable man upon the table, and
went forward in search of a fish-box. He split up the sides into rough
splints and came aft with them.
"Thank 'ee, lad," said Weeks. "Just cut my boot away, and fix it up
best you can."
The tossing of the smack made the operation difficult and long. Weeks,
however, never uttered a groan. Only Duncan once looked up, and
said--"Halloa! You've hurt your face too. There's blood on your chin!"
"That's all right!" said Weeks, with an effort. "I reckon I've just
bit through my lip."
Duncan stopped his work.
"You've got a medicine-chest, skipper, with some laudanum in it--?"
"Daren't!" replied Weeks. "There's on'y you and me to work the ship.
Fix up the job quick as you can, and I'll have a drink of Friar's
Balsam afterwards. Seems to me the gale's blowing itself out, and if
on'y the wind holds in the same quarter--" And thereupon he fainted.
Duncan bandaged up the leg, got Weeks round, gave him a drink of
Friar's Balsam, set the teapot within his reach, and went on deck. The
wind was going down; the air was clearer of foam. He tallowed the lead
and heaved it, and brought it down to Weeks. Weeks looked at the sand
stuck on the tallow and tasted it, and seemed pleased.
"This gives me my longitude," said he, "but not my latitude, worse
luck. Still, we'll manage it. You'd better get our dinner now; any odd
thing in the way of biscuits or a bit of cold fish will do, and then I
think we'll be able to run."