THE BELL BUOY
He listened intently and thought that it came from the direction of the
light. It rang again and again, each time a little louder. Suddenly,
however, he was aware that the light seemed no longer stationary. He had
the disheartening experience of realizing that his beacon of hope was a
running light on a fishing smack. He felt like crying as he watched the
shadowy hull gaining speed for he realized that she must have just
started ahead, having waited for the wind to change.
Every wave carried her farther and farther away from the watching boy.
If he had only got there just a little sooner, he thought dismally. But
he had done the best he could. There was nothing left now but to sit and
watch her swallowed up by the darkness and the mountainous seas and that
had happened in a few minutes’ time.
He was glad he had not been foolish enough to hope that he could reach
her and overtake her, only to be disappointed and use up what little
strength he had left. That at least was some satisfaction and it helped
him bear his desperate plight a little more patiently.
The constant booming of the sea had a queer effect on his sensitive
ears. He imagined himself to be hearing all sorts of noises,
particularly the ringing of the bell. At times he could have sworn he
heard it right at hand and at other times it seemed but a mocking echo.
The air was quite clear now, though the rain continued, and Skippy saw
to his dismay that the boat was getting a little too full of water for
his safety. He put down the oar for a while and bailed her out with his
rusty bait can.
The little boat tossed against each rising wave like a feather; but he
worked feverishly and trusted to luck that it would not upset. Then
after a few minutes he was startled by the sound of the bell ringing
right over his head. Before he had time to look up he felt the boat bump
hard against something.
He was on his feet in a second and saw to his great surprise that the
boat was alongside of a bell buoy.
It has been truly said that time and tide wait for no man and certainly
Skippy was aware of this instantly, for in the next second a giant wave
had washed him out of reach of the buoy. This realization made him
desperate and he got into action to get back to it, for he well knew now
that to drift on through the night would mean certain death.
With a swift movement he pushed his wet hair back from his high
forehead. Then he bent over, got the oar and grabbed a rope, holding it
tightly in his hand. And for fully five minutes he battled and struggled
against the undertow.
His eyes were wide and staring from the strain and little streams of
water ran down either cheek. His clothes from head to foot were weighted
against him with water but he never stopped until he had brought the
boat back against the buoy and in a second he had thrown the painter
around it and pulled it taut.
That done he sank down in the bottom of the boat, exhausted.
For some time his mind was an utter blank. He was too tired and weak to
think or even to care. But the rain beating steadily down on his
unprotected body soon chilled him back into action and he got up and
exercised his arms and legs.
As the buoy swayed upon each succeeding swell, the bell tolled
mournfully. Its eerie echoes were faint and quickly lost in the noise of
the pounding sea, and Skippy decided that no mariner ten minutes’ sail
from the bell was likely to look that way. Also, the quick wash of the
sea prevented the bell from tolling its loudest and longest. Nothing but
his own two hands could do that.
And so he did it.
For the next hour he bent his frail body over the swaying buoy and swung
the cold, wet bell back and forth, back and forth. Peal after peal
tolled forth dismally and though his eyes became blurred with weariness
he knew that he had missed nothing, for nothing had passed for him to
miss.
So it went on through the long, dark hours. He would take an interval of
rest and then jump up to his vigil at the bell for fear he would fall
asleep and miss some passing ship.
The night seemed interminable. Indeed, he began to believe that he had
fallen asleep and that a day had passed and another night had come
without his being aware of it, for never had he thought the dark hours
were so long.
Morning came at last and with the first streak of light on the eastern
horizon, hope came back anew. The rain gradually ceased and during
Skippy’s intervals of rest he watched, with not a little awe, the wonder
of dawn at sea. Little by little the night fled before the roseate morn
and soon the entire sky was flooded with soft light. And as the sun
crept up out of the sea he stretched himself across the wet seats and
relaxed.
Two hours later, he woke with the sun shining full in his face. He sat
up, startled, and realized that his head was aching and that he felt
stiff and chilled. Moreover, he felt sick with despair to think that he
had slept away the hours of daylight, hours when a ship might have
passed near enough for him to signal.
He stood up and scanned the sunlit water in all directions but there was
not a sign of a sail, not a sign of a ship. In the distance, a gull
soared high above the water and after a moment another one seemed to
leap out of space and join it.
The tide was going out and the whole surface of the blue-green water
seemed to roll on toward the horizon in a series of undulating hills. A
gentle murmur filled the warm, sunlit air and Skippy could not believe
that the booming surf of the past night had been anything but a bad
dream.
He rang the bell for a time but had to give it up because of a terrible
giddiness in his head. And so for hours, he sat anxiously scanning the
illimitable sea and sky, hoping, hoping, hoping....
Noon came and passed and the sun scorched him cruelly. The boat, too,
had become a constant source of anxiety for she developed a leak and had
to be continually bailed out, and he was thankful that he had not obeyed
a former impulse and tried to row her east in the hope that he would
strike the Hook.
Toward mid-afternoon he was conscious of pains in his chest, and his
hunger and thirst were becoming unbearable, particularly the thirst, for
the heat of the sun was intense. He wished fervently for the cooling
rain of the night before.
Sunset came, however, and with it a soft, cool wind. Skippy welcomed it,
but hated the gray light of approaching twilight that obliterated the
deep blue clouds. It seemed to spell doom to him and he cried out in
despair. If daylight had not brought rescue what hope was there left for
another long night?
His hopes sprang up afresh, however, and he conceived the idea of tying
to the bell a long length of rope which he found in the bottom of the
boat. In this manner, he could ring it constantly just by pulling the
rope which required little exertion on his part. By dusk he was feeling
too sick to either stand or sit up.
He entered his second night at sea both hopeful and despairing. Every
doleful clang from the bell brought him hope but in the following
silence it would quickly vanish and he would sink in depths of despair.
Then with his fast-ebbing strength he would pull hopefully at the rope
again.
[Illustration: EVERY DOLEFUL CLANG FROM THE BELL BROUGHT SKIPPY HOPE.]
And so the bell tolled on through the long night hours.