CAST AWAY
Tom Lewson had been an hour in camp before he began the story of his
wanderings, and at first, lying propped up on one elbow, with the
lamplight on his worn face, he spoke slowly and with faltering tongue.
"We broke an oar coming off the beach that night, and it kind of
crippled us," he said. "Twice the boat nearly went back again in the
surf, and I don't quite know how we pulled her off. Anyway, one of us
was busy heaving out the water that broke into her. It was Jake, I
think, and he seemed kind of silly. Once we saw a boat hove up on a sea,
but we lost her in the spray, and a long while after we saw the
schooner. Just then a comber that broke on board 'most hove us over, and
when we had dodged the next two there wasn't a sign of the schooner.
After that we knew that we were done, and we just tried to keep her
head-to and ease her to the seas."
He stopped a moment, and looked around at the others with troubled eyes,
as if trying to marshal uncertain memories. He was a simple sailorman,
who contented himself with the baldest narrative; still, two of those
who heard him could fill in the things he had not mentioned--the mad
lurching of the half-swamped boat, the tense struggle with the oars each
time a big frothing comber forged out of the darkness, and the savage
desperation of the drenched and half-frozen men cast away with the
roaring surf to lee of them and their enemies watching upon the hammered
beach.
"It blew hard that night," he continued. "Somehow our little boat lived
through it, but there wasn't a sign of the island when morning
came--nothing but the combers and the flying haze! Guess the wind must
have shifted a few points and drove us by the end of it. Then we found
Jake had his head laid open by a sealing club. The sea was getting
longer, and as we were too played out to hold the boat to it we got her
away before it, and somehow she didn't roll over. I think it was next
day, though it might have been longer, when we fetched another island.
She just washed up on it, and one of the others pulled me out. There
wasn't a sign of anybody on the beach, but there were plenty of skinned
holluschickie seals on the slope behind it, and that was fortunate for
us."
"You struck nobody on the island?" questioned Wyllard.
"We didn't," Lewson answered simply. "The Russians must have sent a
vessel to take off the killers after the last drive of the season a day
or two before, for the holluschickie were quite fresh. It was blowing
hard and the surf was getting steep, and the men had left quite a few of
their things behind them. We found the shacks that the killers lived in,
and we made out that winter in one of them."
It occurred to Wyllard that this was a thing very few men except sealers
could have done had they been cast ashore without stores or tools to
face the awful winter of the North.
"How did you get through?" he asked.
"Well," explained Lewson, "we had a rifle, and the ca'tridges weren't
spoilt. The killers hadn't taken their cooking outfit, and by and by we
got a walrus in an open lane among the ice. They'd left some gear behind
them, but we were most of two days cutting and heaving the beast out
with a parbuckle under him. There was no trouble about things keeping in
that frost. Besides, we'd the holluschickie blubber to burn, and there
was a half-empty bag or two of stores in one of the shacks. No, we
hadn't any great trouble in making out."
"You had to stay there until the ice broke up," Charly observed.
"And after. The boat was gone, and we couldn't get away. She broke up in
the surf, and we burned what we saved of her. At last a schooner came
along, and we hid out across the island until she'd gone away. It was
blowing fresh, and hazy, and she just shoved a new gang of killers
ashore. There was an Okotsk Russian with them, but he made no trouble
for us. He was white, anyway, and it kind of seemed to me he didn't like
one of the other men who got hurt that night on the beach."
"Then some of them did get badly hurt?" Wyllard broke in.
"Well," Lewson said, "from what that Russian told us--and we got to
understand each other after a time--one of the killers had his ribs
broke, and it seems that another would go lame for life. Besides, among
other things, there was a white man got his face quite smashed. I saw
him with his nose flattened way out to starboard, and one eye canted. He
was a boss of some kind. They called him Smirnoff."
Overweg looked up sharply. "Ah," he commented, "Smirnoff. A man with an
unsavory name. I have heard of him."
"Anyway," Lewson went on, "we killed seals all the open season with that
Russian, and I've no fault to find with him. In fact, I figure that if
he could have fixed it he'd have left us on the island that winter, but
when a schooner came to take the killers off and collect the skins
Smirnoff was on board of her. That"--an ominous gleam crept into
Lewson's eyes--"was the real beginning of the trouble. He had us hauled
up before him--guess the other man had to tell him who we were--and when
I wouldn't answer he slashed me across the face with a dog whip."
Lewson clenched a lean brown fist. "Yes" he added, hoarsely, "I was
whipped--but they should have tied my hands first. It was not my fault I
didn't have that man's life. It was 'most a minute before three of them
pulled me off him, and he was considerably worse to look at then."
There was silence for a minute or two, and Wyllard, who felt his own
face grow warm, saw the suggestive hardness in Charly's eyes. Lewson was
gazing out into the darkness, but the veins were swollen on his forehead
and his whole body had stiffened.
"We'll let that go. I can't think of it," he said, recovering his
composure. "They put us on board the schooner, and by and by she ran
into a creek on the coast. We were to be sent somewhere to be dealt
with, and we knew what that meant, with what they had against us. Well,
they went ashore to collect some skins from the Kamtchadales, and at
night we cut the boat adrift. We got off in the darkness, and if they
followed they never trailed us. Guess they figured we couldn't make out
through the winter that was coming on."
So far the story had been more or less connected and comprehensible. It
laid no great tax on Wyllard's credulity, and, indeed, all that Lewson
described had come about very much as Dampier had once or twice
suggested; but it seemed an almost impossible thing that the three men
should have survived during the years that followed. Lewson, as it
happened, never made that matter very clear. He sat silent for almost a
minute before he went on again.
"We hauled the boat out, and hid her among the rocks, and after that we
fell in with some Kamtchadales going north," he said. "They took us
along, I don't know how far, but they were trapping for furs, and after
a time--I think it was months after--we got away from them. Then we fell
in with another crowd, and went on further north with them. They were
Koriaks, and we lived with them a long while--a winter and a summer
anyway. It was more, perhaps--I can't remember."
He broke off with a vague gesture, and sat looking at the others
vacantly with his lean face furrowed.
"We must have been with them two years--but I don't quite know. It was
all the same up yonder--ever so far to the north."
It seemed to Wyllard that he had seldom heard anything more expressive
in its way than this sailorman's brief and fragmentary description of
his life in the wilderness. He had heard from whaler-skippers a little
about the tundra that fringes the Polar Sea, the vast desolation frozen
hard in summer a few inches below the surface, on which nothing beyond
the mosses ever grew. It was easy to understand the brain-crushing
sameness and monotony of an existence checkered only by times of dire
scarcity on those lonely shores.
"How did you live?" he asked.
"There were the birds in summer, and fish in the rivers. In winter we
killed things in the lanes in the ice, though there were weeks when we
lay about the blubber lamp in the pits. They made pits and put a roof on
them. I don't know why we staked there, but Jake had always a notion
that we might get across to Alaska--somehow. We were way out on the ice
one day when Jim fell into a crevice, and we couldn't get him out."
He stopped, and sat still a while as one dreaming. "I can't put things
together, but at last we came south, Jake and I, and struck the
Kamtchadales again. We could talk to them, and one of them told us about
a schooner lying in an inlet by a settlement. The Russians had brought
her there from the islands, and she must have been a sealer. Jake
figured it was just possible we might run away with her and push across
for the Aleutians or Alaska."
Charly looked up suddenly. "She--was--a sealer--Hayson's _Seminole_. I
was in Victoria when we heard that the Russians had seized her."
Wyllard turned to Overweg, who nodded when he asked a question in
French.
"Yes," he said, "I believe the vessel lies in the inlet still. They have
used her now and then. It is understood that they were warranted in
seizing her, but I think there was some diplomatic pressure brought to
bear on them, for they sent her crew home."
Lewson went on again. "Food was scarce that season, and we got 'most
nothing in the traps," he said. "Besides, there were Russians out
prospecting, and that headed us off. We figured that some of the
Kamtchadales who traded skins to the settlements would put them on our
trail. When we went to look for the boat she'd gone, but we hadn't much
notion of getting off in her, though another time--I don't remember
when--we gave two Kamtchadales messages we'd cut on slips of wood.
Sometimes the schooners stood in along the coast."
Wyllard nodded. "Dunton of the _Cypress_ got your message," he said. "He
was in difficulties then, but he afterwards sent it me."
"Well," said Lewson, "there isn't much more to it. We hung about the
beach a while, and then went north before the winter. Jake played out on
the trail. By and by he had to let up, and in a day or two I buried
him."
His voice grew hoarse. "After that it didn't seem to matter what became
of me, but I kept the trail somehow, and found I couldn't stay up
yonder. That's why I started south with some of them before the summer
came. Now I'm here--talking English--talking with white men--but it
doesn't seem the same as it should have been--without the others."
He talked no more that night, but Wyllard translated part of his story
for the benefit of Overweg.
"The thing, it seems incredible," commented the scientist. "This man,
who has so little to tell, knows things which would make a trained
explorer famous."
"It generally happens that way," said Wyllard. "The men who know can't
tell."
Overweg made a sign of assent, and then changed the subject.
"What shall you do now?" he asked.
"Start for the inlet, where we expect to find the schooner, at sunrise.
I want to say"--Wyllard hesitated--"that you have laid an obligation on
me which I can never repay; but I can, at least, replace the provisions
you have given me."
"That goes for nothing," declared Overweg, with a smile. "I have,
however, drawn upon my base camp rather heavily, and should be glad of
any stores from the schooner that you could let me have. The difficulty
is that I do not wish to go too far toward the beach."
They arranged a rendezvous a few days' march from the inlet, and in
another half-hour all of them were fast asleep.
When the first of the daylight came Wyllard set off with his two
companions, and since it was evident that Dampier must have now lain in
the inlet awaiting them a considerable time, they marched fast for
several days. Then, to their consternation, they came upon the Siwash
lying beside a river badly lame. It appeared that in climbing a slippery
ridge of rock the knee he had injured had given way, and he had fallen
some distance heavily, after which the Kamtchadale, finding him
helpless, had disappeared with most of the provisions. None of the party
ever learned what had become of the faithless courier, but they realized
that the situation was now a rather serious one. Charly, who looked at
Wyllard when he had heard the Indian's story, explained it concisely.
"I'm worrying about the boat we left on the edge of the ice," he said.
"I've had a notion all along it was going to make trouble. Dampier would
see the wreckage when he ran in, and I guess it would only mean one
thing to him. He'd make quite certain he was right when he didn't find
us at the inlet." He paused and pointed towards the distant sea. "You
have got to push right on with Lewson as fast as you can while I try to
bring the Siwash along."
Wyllard started within the next few minutes, and afterward never quite
forgot the strain and stress of that arduous march. The journey that he
had made with Overweg had been difficult enough, but they had then
traversed rising ground from which most of the melting snow had drained
away. Now, however, as they approached the more level littoral there
were wide tracts of mire and swamp to be painfully floundered through,
while every ravine and hollow was swept by a frothing torrent, and they
had often to search for hours for a place where it was possible to
cross. To make things worse, they were drenched with rain half the time,
and trails of dingy mist obscured their path, but they toiled on
stubbornly through every obstacles, though it was only by the tensest
effort that Wyllard kept pace with his companion. The gaunt, long-haired
Lewson seemed proof against physical weariness, and there was seldom any
change in the expression of his grim, lined face. Now and then Wyllard
felt a curious shrinking as he glanced at Lewson, for his fixed look
suggested what he had borne in the awful solitudes of the frozen North.
Slowly, with infinite toil, they crossed the weary leagues, lying at
night with a single skin between them and the soil, for they traveled
light. Wyllard was limping painfully, with his boots worn off his feet,
when one morning they came into sight of a low promontory which rose
against a stretch of gray lifeless sea. His heart throbbed fast as he
realized that behind it lay the inlet into which Dampier had arranged to
bring the _Selache_. He glanced at Lewson, who said nothing, and they
plodded forward faster than before.
The misty sun was high in the heavens when they reached the foot of the
steep rise, and Wyllard gasped heavily as they crept up the ascent. He
was making a severe muscular effort; but it was the nervous tension that
troubled him most, for he knew that he would look down upon the inlet
from the summit. He blamed himself bitterly for not sending a messenger
to Dampier immediately after he fell in with Overweg. There had
certainly been difficulties in the way, for the increase in the
scientist's party had made additional packers necessary, and Wyllard
felt that he could not reasonably compel the man who had succored him to
leave behind the camp comforts to which he had evidently been
accustomed. In spite of that, he had been at fault in not disregarding
every objection, and he realized it now.
Somehow he kept pace with Lewson, but he closed one hand tight as he
neared the top of the promontory. When he reached the summit he stopped
suddenly, and his face set hard as he looked down. Beneath him lay a
strip of dim, green water, with a fringe of soft white surf, while
beyond the beach there stretched away an empty expanse of slowly heaving
sea. There was no schooner in the inlet, no boat upon the beach.
In another moment or two they went down the slope at a stumbling run,
and then stopped, gasping by the water's edge, and looked at one
another. There were marks in the sand which showed where a boat had been
drawn up not very long before. The _Selache_ evidently had been there,
and had sailed away again.
Wyllard sat down limply upon the shingle, for all the strength seemed
suddenly to melt out of him, and it was several minutes before he looked
up. Gazing out at sea, Lewson was still standing, a shapeless, barbaric
figure in his garments of skins. The hide moccasins he wore had chafed
through, and Wyllard noticed that the blood was trickling from one of
his feet.
"Well?" Lewson asked harshly.
Wyllard laid a stern restraint upon himself. Their case looked
desperate, but it must be grappled with.
"We must go back and meet the rest," he said. "That first--what is to
come afterwards I don't quite know." A faint gleam of resolution crept
into his eyes. "The schooner the Russians seized lies in an inlet down
the coast."
Lewson made a sign of comprehension. "There are four of us. There will
be birds by and by. I can trap things."
He flung himself down near his comrade, and for an hour neither of them
spoke. Wyllard was worn out physically and limp from the last few hours'
mental strain, while Lewson very seldom said more than was absolutely
necessary. They made a very frugal meal, and long afterwards Wyllard was
haunted by the memory of that dreary afternoon during which he lay upon
the shingle watching the slow pulsations of the dim, lifeless sea.
They set out again early next morning, and, as it happened, found a
little depôt of provisions that Dampier had made, but it was several
days before they met Charly and the Indian, and another week had passed
before Overweg reached the appointed meeting-place. The scientist
listened to Wyllard's story gravely, and then appeared to consider.
"You have some plans?" he asked.
Wyllard admitted that this was the case, and Overweg smiled behind his
spectacles.
"It is, perhaps, better that you should not tell me what they are," he
said. "There is, however, one thing I can do. You say you left some
stores you could not carry at the depôt, which I will take, for
provisions are now not plentiful with me, but at my base camp there are
still a few things you have not which are almost necessary, and"--he
made a gesture of reassuring significance--"after all, if I have to go
south a little earlier than I intended it is not a great matter."
He wrote on a strip of paper which he handed to Wyllard. "You will take
these, and nothing else. I may add that Smirnoff is stationed at the
inlet where the schooner lies."
Wyllard thanked him, and then looked him in the eyes. "There is a long
journey before us, and you have only my word that I will take nothing
but these things."
Overweg nodded quietly. "Yes," he said, "it is perhaps permissible to
assure you that it is sufficient for me."
Little more was said, and in another half-hour Wyllard and his
companions were ready to set out. He and the little spectacled scientist
grasped each other's hands, and then Wyllard abruptly turned away.
Looking back a few minutes later, he saw Overweg standing upon the ridge
where he had left him, silhouetted against a low, gray sky. The
scientist raised his cap once, and Wyllard, who answered him, swung
around once more, and strode faster towards the south.