_In the Offshore Gale: In Which Billy Topsail Goes Seal
Hunting and is Swept to Sea With the Floe_
WHAT befell old Tom Topsail and his crew came in the course of the
day's work. Fishermen and seal-hunters, such as the folk of Ruddy Cove,
may not wait for favourable weather; when the fish are running, they
must fish; when the seals are on the drift-ice offshore in the spring,
they must hunt.
So on that lowering day, when the seals were sighted by the watch on
Lookout Head, it was a mere matter of course that the men of the place
should set out to the hunt.
"I s'pose," Tom Topsail drawled, "that we'd best get under way."
Bill Watt, his mate, scanned the sky in the northeast. It was heavy,
cold and leaden; fluffy gray towards the zenith, and black where the
clouds met the barren hills.
"I s'pose," said he, catching Topsail's drawl, "that 'twill snow afore
long."
"Oh, aye," was the slow reply, "I s'pose 'twill."
Again Bill Watt faced the sullen sky. He felt that the supreme danger
threatened--snow with wind.
"I s'pose," he said, "that 'twill blow, too."
"Oh, aye," Topsail replied, indifferently, "snow 'n' blow. We'll know
what 'twill do when it begins," he added. "Billy, b'y!" he shouted.
In response Billy Topsail came bounding down the rocky path from the
cottage. He was stout for his age, with broad shoulders, long thick
arms and large hands. There was a boy's flush of expectation on his
face, and the flash of a boy's delight in his eyes. He was willing for
adventure.
"Bill an' me'll take the rodney," Topsail drawled. "I s'pose you
might's well fetch the punt, an' we'll send you back with the first
haul."
"Hooray!" cried Billy; and with that he waved his cap and sped back up
the hill.
"Fetch your gaff, lad!" Topsail called after him. "Make haste! There's
Joshua Rideout with his sail up. 'Tis time we was off."
"Looks more'n ever like snow," Bill Watt observed, while they waited.
"I'm thinkin' _'twill_ snow."
"Oh, maybe 'twon't," said Topsail, optimistic in a lazy way.
The ice-floe was two miles or more off the coast; thence it stretched
to the horizon--a vast, rough, blinding white field, formed of detached
fragments. Some of the "pans" were acres in size; others were not big
enough to bear the weight of a man; all were floating free, rising and
falling with the ground swell.
The wind was light, the sea quiet, the sky thinly overcast. Had it not
been for the threat of heavy weather in the northeast, it would have
been an ideal day for the hunt. The punt and the rodney, the latter
far in the lead, ran quietly out from the harbour, with their little
sails all spread. From the punt Billy Topsail could soon see the small,
scattered pack of seals--black dots against the white of the ice.
When the rodney made the field, the punts of the harbour fleet had
disappeared in the winding lanes of open water that led through
the floe. Tom Topsail was late. The nearer seals were all marked
by the hunters who had already landed. The rodney would have to be
taken farther in than the most venturesome hunter had yet dared to
go--perilously far into the midst of the shifting pans.
The risk of sudden wind--the risk that the heavy fragments would "pack"
and "nip" the boat--had to be taken if seals were to be killed.
"We got to go right in, Bill," said Topsail, as he furled the rodney's
sails.
"I s'pose," was Watt's reply, with a backward glance to the northeast.
"An' Billy?"
"'Tis not wise to take un in," Topsail answered, hastily. "We'll have
un bide here."
Billy was hailed, and, to his great disappointment, warned to keep
beyond the edge of the floe. Then the rodney shot into the lane, with
Topsail and Bill Watt rowing like mad. She was soon lost to sight.
Billy shipped his sail and paddled to the edge of the ice, to wait, as
patiently as might be, for the reappearance of the rodney.
Patience soon gave way to impatience, impatience to anxiety, anxiety to
great fear for the lives of his father and the mate, for the offshore
gale was driving up; the blue-black clouds were already high and rising
swiftly.
At last there came an ominous puff of wind. It swept over the sea from
the coast, whipping up little waves in its course--frothy little waves,
that hissed. Heavy flakes of snow began to fall. As the wind rose they
fell faster, and came driving, swirling with it.
With the fall of the first flakes the harbour fleet came pell-mell from
the floe. Not a man among them but wished himself in a sheltered place.
Sails were raised in haste, warnings were shouted; then off went the
boats, beating up to harbour with all sail set.
"Make sail, lad!" old Elisha Bull shouted to Billy, as his punt swung
past.
Billy shook his head. "I'll beat back with father!" he cried.
"You'll lose yourself!" Elisha screamed, as a last warning, before his
punt carried him out of hail.
But Billy still hung at the edge of the ice. His father had said, "Bide
here till we come out," and "bide" there he would.
He kept watch for the rodney, but no rodney came. Minute after minute
flew by. He hesitated. Was it not his duty to beat home? There was
still the fair chance that he might be able to make the harbour. Did
he not owe a duty to his mother--to himself?
But a crashing noise from the floe brought him instantly to a decision.
He knew what that noise meant. The ice was feeling the force of the
wind. It would pack and move out to sea. The lane by which the rodney
had entered then slowly closed.
In horror Billy watched the great pans swing together. There was now
no escape for the boat. The strong probability was that she would be
crushed to splinters by the crowding of the ice; that indeed she had
already been crushed; that the men were either drowned or cast away on
the floe.
At once the lad's duty was plain to him. He must stay where he was. If
his father and Bill Watt managed to get to the edge of the ice afoot,
who else was to take them off?
The ice was moving out to sea, Billy knew. The pans were crunching,
grinding, ever more noisily. But he let the punt drift as near as he
dared, and so followed the pack towards the open, keeping watch, ever
more hopelessly, for the black forms of the two men.
Soon, so fast did the sea rise, so wild was the wind, his own danger
was very great. The ice was like a rocky shore to leeward. He began to
fear that he would be wrecked.
Time and again the punt was nearly swamped, but Billy dared not drop
the oars to bail. There was something more. His arms, stout and
seasoned though they were, were giving out. It would not long be
possible to keep the boat off the ice. He determined to land on the
floe.
But the sea was breaking on the ice dead to leeward. It was impossible
to make a landing there, so with great caution he paddled to the right,
seeking a projecting point, behind which he might find shelter. At last
he came to a cove. It narrowed to a long, winding arm, which apparently
extended some distance into the floe.
There he found quiet water. He landed without difficulty at a point
where the arm was no more than a few yards wide. Dusk was then
approaching. The wind was bitterly cold, and the snow was thick and
blinding.
It would not be safe, he knew, to leave the boat in the water, for at
any moment the shifting pans might close and crush it. He tried to lift
it out of the water, but his strength was not sufficient. He managed
to get the bow on the ice; that was all.
"I'll just have to leave it," he thought. "I'll just have to trust that
'twill not be nipped."
Near by there was a hummock of ice. He sought the lee of it, and there,
protected from the wind, he sat down to wait.
Often, when the men were spinning yarns in the cottages of Ruddy Cove
of a winter night, he had listened, open-mouthed, to the tales of
seal-hunters who had been cast away. Now he was himself drifting out to
sea. He had no fire, no food, no shelter but a hummock of ice. He had
the bitterness of the night to pass through--the hunger of to-morrow to
face.
"But sure," he muttered, with characteristic hopefulness, "I've a boat,
an' many a man has been cast away without one."
He thought he had better make another effort to haul the boat on the
ice. Some movement of the pack might close the arm where it floated. So
he stumbled towards the place.
He stared round in amazement and alarm; then he uttered a cry of
terror. The open water had disappeared.
"She's been nipped!" he sobbed. "She's been nipped--nipped to
splinters! I've lost meself!"
Night came fast. An hour before, so dense was the storm, nothing had
been visible sixty paces away; now nothing was to be seen anywhere.
Where was the rodney? Had his father and Bill Watt escaped from the
floe by some new opening? Were they safe at home? Were they still on
the floe? He called their names. The swish of the storm, the cracking
and crunching of the ice as the wind swept it on--that was all that he
heard.
For a long time he sat in dull despair. He hoped no longer.
By and by, when it was deep night, something occurred to distract him.
He caught sight of a crimson glow, flaring and fading. It seemed to be
in the sky, now far off, now near at hand. He started up.
"What's that?" he muttered.