_In Which the Wind Blows a Tempest, Our Heroes are Lost on the Floe,
Jonathan Farr is Encased in Snow and Frozen Spindrift, Toby
Strangely Disappears, and an Heroic Fight for Life is Begun, Wrapped
in Bitter Dark_
It is well known on this coast, from Cape Race to Norman and the
Labrador harbours, what happened to Cap'n Saul that night. It was vast,
flat, heavy ice, thick labour for the ship, at best--square miles of
pans and fields. In the push of the northwest gale, blowing down, all at
once, with vigour and fury, from a new quarter, the big pans shifted and
revolved. The movement was like that of a waltz--slow dancers, revolving
in a waltz. And then the floe closed. And what was a clear course in the
morning was packed ice before dusk.
When the day began to foul, Cap'n Saul snatched up the First Watch,
where he was standing by, and came driving down after Bill o' Burnt
Bay's watch. It was too late. The ice caught him. And there was no
shaking free. The men on the floe glimpsed the ship--the bulk of the
ship and a cloud of smoke; but Cap'n Saul caught no glimpse of them--a
huddle of poor men wrapped in snow and dusk.
A blast of the gale canted the _Rough and Tumble_ until her bare yards
touched the floe and Cap'n Saul had a hard time to save her alive from
the gale. And that was the measure of the wind. It blew a tempest.
Rescue? No rescue. The men knew that. A rescue would walk blind--stray
and blow away like leaves. They must wait for clear weather and dawn.
There had been Newfoundlanders in the same hard case before. The men
knew what to do.
"Keep movin'!"
"No sleep!"
"Stick t'gether!"
"Nobody lie down!"
"Fetch me a buffet, some o' you men, an I gets sleepy."
"I gives any man leave t' beat me."
"Where's Tom Land?"
"Here I is!"
"I say, Tom--Long George gives any man leave t' beat un black an' blue!"
And a laugh at that.
"Mind the blow-holes!"
"An a man gets wet, he'll freeze solid."
"No sleep!"
"Keep movin'!"
They kept moving to keep warm. And even they larked. Tag, whilst they
could see to chase--and a sad leap-frog. And they wrestled and scuffled
until it was black dark and the heart went out of them all. And then
they wandered, with no lee to shelter them--a hundred and seventy-three
men, stamping and stumbling in the wind, clinging to life, hour after
hour, and waiting for the dawn, bitten by frost and near stifled by
snow. It was gnawing cold. Twelve below--it was afterwards said. And
that's bitter weather. It bit through to the bones and heart. And what
they wore to withstand it--no great-coats, to hamper the kill, but only
jackets and caps and mitts.
The floe was flat and bare to the gale. Nobody knows the pitch of the
wind. It was a full tempest. That much is known. And it stung and cut
and strove to wrest them from their feet and whisk them away. And there
they were--in the grip of the wind, stripped to the strength they had,
like lost beasts, and helpless to fend any more. Billy Topsail saw
young Simeon Tutt, of Whoopin' Harbour, trip and stagger and fall at his
feet; and before Billy could lay hands on him to save him, the wind blew
him away, like a leaf, and he was never seen again, but driven into a
lake of water in the dark, it was thought, and there perished.
[Illustration: LIKE LOST BEASTS]
By and by Archie and Billy stumbled on old Jonathan Farr of Jolly
Harbour. It was long past midnight then. And they saw no lad with him.
Where was Toby?
"That you, Jonathan?" said Archie.
"'Tis I, Archie."
"You living yet?"
"No choice. I got t' live."
"Where's Toby?" said Billy.
"The lad's----"
It was hard to hear. The old man's words jumped away with the wind. And
still the boys saw no lad.
"What say?" said Billy. "I don't see Toby. Where is he?"
"In my lee," Jonathan replied. "He's restin'."
There stood old Jonathan Farr, in the writhing gloom of that night,
stiff and still and patient as the dead, with his back to the gale,
plastered with snow and frozen spindrift, his shoulders humped and his
head drawn in like a turtle. It was bitter dark--yet not as black as the
grave. It is never that on the floe. And the wind streamed past, keen as
a blade with frost, thick with crisp snow, and clammy with the spray it
caught up from the open lakes and flung off in sheets and mist.
Dead bodies lying roundabout then--the boys had stumbled over the dead
as they walked. Young men, sprawled stiff, hard as ice to the bones,
lying stark in the drifts--Big Sam Tiller, of Thank-the-Lord, he that
whipped Paddy of Linger Tickle, in White Bay, when the fleet was trapped
by the floe in the Year of the Small Haul, was dead by that time; and
Archie had found little Dickie Ring, of Far-Away Cove, dead in his elder
brother's dead arms--they were pried apart with a crowbar when the time
came.
Yet there stood old Jonathan Farr, cased in snow and ice, with the life
warm in him--making a lee for little Toby. And Toby was snuggled up to
his grandfather, his face close--sheltered and rested from the gale, as
much as might be.
Billy Topsail bent down.
"How does you?" says he.
Toby put his head out from its snug harbour, and spoke, in a passion, as
though Billy had wronged him, and then ducked back from the smother of
wind and snow.
"My gran'pa takes care o' _me_!" he flashed.
"Will you save him, Jonathan?" Archie asked.
"I've a shot in the locker, Archie," Jonathan replied. "I'll save un
alive."
Out flashed Toby's head; and he tugged at his grandfather--and bawled
up.
"Is I doin' well?" he wanted to know.
"You is!"
"Is I doin' as well as my father done at my age?"
"You is! Is you rested?"
"Ay, sir."
"Full steam ahead!" said Jonathan. With that they bore away--playing a
game. And Jonathan was the skipper and Toby was the wheelman and engine.
"Port!" bawled Jonathan. And "Starboard your helm!" And Billy and Archie
lost sight of them in the dark.