Crested Seas

by Arthur Hunt Chute

  “Aren’t you takin’ your share, Uncle Jock?”

  “Not thirsty,” he replied.

  I knew that this was only a bluff in order to save his portion against worse times ahead.

  All through the morning we continued to row. Then after a period of calm, the wind sprang up again in a favorable quarter, and we were able once more to set the dory sail.

  By twilight, we were tearing along before a rising gale. Discretion would long since have prompted one to reef down, but discretion was

  a quality that Cap’n Jock no longer possessed.

  With the sea getting up, our dory seemed to be playing leapfrog across the tumbling mountains. Spume mantled us continually. In spite of the trawl buoys, and my constant efforts at the bailing, we should have been sprawled out but for the consummate skill of the Skipper. With an oar in one hand, and the sheet in the other he held the tiny craft unswervingly to her course.

  Night found a full gale howling across the ocean wastes. Before the gale, and before the seas the dory sped like a winged fury.

  About midnight, through murk and gloom, I suddenly detected a long pencil of light blinking momentarily, then vanishing.

  “I thought I saw a flash.”

  “Yea, there it is again. Cranberry Island Light, off Canso.”

  At this news, my heart gave a leap of joy, while I let out a resounding whoop, which was suddenly interrupted.

  “Save them howls fer the shore. We ain’t there yet, Johnnie Angus.”

  “Aye, but we’ve raised the land.”

  “Twenty miles off, too soon to start hollerin’.”

  The Skipper hardly had time to check up his bearing from a pocket compass before it shut in thick again.

  As the fog closed down upon us, the temporary sense of safety fled, as dimly we caught the distant thunder of an iron-bound shore.

  There is nothing more terrifying to the navigator than the voice of breakers heard through the murderous curtain of the fog.

  With a sense of lurking terror, the idea of safety was instinctive.

  Whither bound?

  What before?

  Bearing in mind the nest of perils that surrounded this portion of the Nova Scotian coast, by contrast the open sea seemed like a refuge.

  “Don’t you think that we had better try to row in from here, Uncle Jock?”

  “We ain’t holdin’ up fer nothin’ now,” was his answer.

  He was the kind that once having made up his mind could be depended upon to abide by it. Now he was evidently out to take the utmost chances.

  Realizing that further pleading would be vain, I set myself to the bailing, and there was need, since the seas were boarding us continually.

  About: half an hour after sighting Cranberry Island Light, without slightest warning, our high-riding dory was tripped by an ugly cross sea, and sent sprawling on to her beam-ends. We were overboard before we had time to realize what had happened.

  CHAPTER XXXIV

  On Our Beam-Ends

  We were both good swimmers, and struck out at once to regain the upturned craft. On account of the breaking crests I shipped considerable water, with the result that I was thoroughly seasick when at last I succeeded in getting a grip.

  In the bottom of the dory the plug becket is rove through the outside for just such emergencies as this. Clutching hold of the plug strap I hung on, while Cap’n Jock clung to the other end. Between us we tried to right her, but the seas were too heavy, and seeing that we gained nothing, we decided to quit.

  “No good trying until this swell gets down a bit. Meanwhile we better lash ourselves so as to get higher out of the water.”

  Making a piece of trawl line fast along the keel, Uncle Jock passed a bowline under my arms and secured this to the lifeline, afterwards doing the same for himself. In this way we were saved the strain of clutching desperately all the time to keep from being swept away.

  “Them’s the lads that’s goin’ to make the high-line catch,” taunted the mate

  It was biting cold, and in my exhausted state the icy water seemed to penetrate to my very bones. After all the agonizing experiences through which we had already passed this was the crowning stroke of misfortune. We had missed our vessel, lost our fish, encountered an unprecedented run of head winds, fog, and dirty weather, and now here we were on our beam- ends just in sight of the lights of home.

  A man who was lost might find his way back to the land in a dory. But when even this frail reed was broken, our predicament was hopeless indeed. With such bitter thoughts in my mind, and with the cold chilling out the last spark of resolution, I groaned:

  “Wish to God we’d gone down at the start.”

  This evidence of surrender on my part drew a withering fire from my Uncle Jock.

  “Ought to be ashamed to croak like that.”

  “But what’s the good, we’re just as bad off now as though we were a hundred miles out at sea.”

  The occasional flash of the Cranberry Light shooting its long rays through the gloom, shone merely to tantalize us in our dire extremity. Whenever the flash came round it seemed to cry out in mocking refrain, “So near, and yet so far!”

  Filled with bitterness at this eternal taunt, at last in desperation I exclaimed :

  “If we don’t get picked up soon, I’m goin’ to cut my rope and go under.”

  “Come all this way, an’ then quit?” Uncle Jock inquired with amazement.

  “What’s the good o’ just hangin’ on to prolong the misery. Might as well be through with it if we’re goin’ to die anyway.”

  “There ain’t goin’ to be no dyin’ aboard this dory.”

  “But what can we do?”

  “We can spit on our hands and take a new grip.”

  At a dismal groan from me, my Uncle continued :

  “In my forty years on the Banks, Johnnie Angus, I’ve seen many a coward go down just because he didn’t have sand enough to hang on.”

  “But you’ve never been in as bad a place as this,” I remonstrated.

  “I haven’t!” he snorted with contempt. “Why, bless me, if ye was on top of an upturned dory on Grand Bank in mid-winter, then ye might begin to talk. This is June, an’ we’re only a few miles off shore. How’d ye like to be over two hundred miles off, nothin’ nearer than Newfoundland, an’ freezin’ winter at that?”

  “Is that the kinda fix you were in once?”

  “You bet ye. We got our dory righted finally, an’ started to row ashore, while a hard nor’east wind blew the spray into ice as it come over us. On the second night, Stephen Graham, my dory-mate, started to humor himself and take it easy. ‘Better row, or ye’ll freeze,’ I told him. But he said it was no use, an’ so he froze, jus’ laid himself down an’ died because he didn’t have spunk enough to keep on fightin’.”

  “And what happened to you, Uncle Jock?” I inquired, forgetting my own sorrows in the recounting of this tale.

  “What happened to me? Why, I kep’ on rowin’, o’ course. When I seen my hands was beginnin’ to go, I held them to the oars to freeze into the hooks so that I would still hold the handles o’ the oars no matter what else happened.”

  “An’ you made it all right?”

  “O’ course I did. An’ what’s more, I ain’t goin’ to beat out all I been through, Johnnie Angus, an’ then die right in sight o’ Cranberry Light.”

  CHAPTER XXXV

  In The Fog

  From the long grueling exposure I had passed into a sort of comatose state, when I was roused out of myself by the sound of my Uncle shouting:

  “Ahoy, there! Ahoy!”

  He had a lusty, penetrating voice, and he was throwing all his weight into it, as he sent out a series of long drawn-out hails.

  At first I was a
bit mystified, then gazing in the direction indicated, I saw the mast-head light of a schooner coming up like a star out of the east.

  Once again I wanted to shout for joy. It did seem as though, when things looked blackest, there was always deliverance coming for those who kept their nerve.

  Joining in my voice, I aided in doing my best to attract the vessel’s attention. The thought that she might escape us, made me literally yell for my life as I sent my voice across the intervening waste of night and sea.

  As the vessel topped the crests, a red light appeared, at which Uncle Jock remarked:

  “She’s on the port tack, headin’ in fer Canso.”

  “Does her course lie our way,” I asked anxiously.

  “No, as she’s headin’ now, she’s about as close to us as she’ll come.”

  “No hope then, if we aren’t heard?”

  “None.”

  Again and again we sent out shouts, cries, and catcalls into the gloom. I was beginning to despair, when a flash flickered on the vessel’s deck, and it became apparent that she had altered her course and was bearing down upon us.

  There was no doubt that our hail had at last been heard. The only trouble was the fog, which seemed to yield temporarily, only to close in again like some great leaden blanket.

  In order to guide them the better, we kept up our shouting continually, while the riding lights of the vessel drew steadily nearer. Then, out of the mist and the night, we descried the white foam at her forefoot, and the shadowy outline of her sails looming ghastly in the fog.

  A man was standing in her forechains, peering ahead, while now and again he gave the helmsman directions on how to steer.

  Drawing nearer, he called out:

  “Who are ye, anyway?”

  To this casual query, my Uncle answered:

  “Jock MacPhee o’ the Airlie, adrift wi’ a dory-mate.”

  The fog was thickest and most baffling just then, and at our last hail we were startled to hear the dim voice of the man in the forechains giving an order which caused her to bear away, instead of closing up.

  “Starboard yer helm there,” was the call aboard the rescuing vessel, and almost instantly we drew appreciably apart.

  At this, Uncle Jock himself shouted to the helmsman: “Port, port!”

  The helmsman must have heard the cry for he started to obey, whereat the man in the fore- chains, evidently the skipper, burst out:

  “Starboard, I said, damn yer eyes, can’t ye hear?”

  As we ranged rapidly apart there was a strange sound of protest from the wheel, while die skipper was expostulating:

  “They was over to starboard; can’t see noth- in’ through pea-soup anyway.”

  As my Uncle sent out another and yet another hail, there was still the evidence of disagreement aboard the schooner. The whole thing was inexplicable. In my amazement at what had transpired, I was too much taken aback to even feel chagrin or disappointment. “ Started to pick us up, and then, when he was almost on to us, bore off again on the opposite tack. I can’t make head or tail of it.”

  “Well, sometimes sound is very deceptive in a fog,” remarked Uncle Jock. “I’ve seen it on the Banks when lads in a dory was hailin’ me from the starboard, an’ I’d a sworn they was to port. Sound seems to come back like an echo till ye can’t tell where it’s from. There’s nothin’ so mixin’ up fer a man as a fog. But they’ll be back again, just wait”

  With this he sent out a lusty: “A-h-o-y— there,—A-h-o-y!”

  Somewhere in the gloom we heard plainly the sound of slatting blocks, and whining gear. She was obviously still close by. But even as we strained our ears to listen, it became increasingly apparent that the distance between us was increasing.

  Uncle Jock looked more and more perplexed.

  “Got me,” he muttered at last.

  “What in the world do you make of it?”

  “Still think he ought to be back on the next tack.”

  As time passed, and the last sign of the schooner was finally swallowed up, the idea of rescue seemed to have gone glimmering. I might have broken down from disappointment, but there was a lure of mystery that still kept me tensed, expectant.

  Uncle Jock, always slow to believe evil, began to mutter, “Aye, perhaps it’s something more than fog after all.”

  Dodging to escape the waves that plopped over us, I shook my head to clear my eyes of brine, then peered into the glistening impenetrable wall, hoping to see a schooner’s forefoot come foaming out of the gloom.

  Uncle Jock still called at intermittent intervals. But as there was no possible encouragement, his shouts grew less and less, and finally both of us were silent again, with nothing but the swish of the seas, and the long-drawn moan of the bitter wind.

  As time passed, and as the last clew of the vessel was finally swallowed up, our hope of rescue had been blotted out.

  There was a speechless period in which the agony seemed to sink in, and then Uncle Jock pulled himself up on the lifeline, and let out a shuddering moan.

  It was a new thing for me to see this imperturbable stoic exhibit any feeling. I was beginning to wonder if perhaps he wasn’t going a bit dippy, when he muttered, half aloud:

  “Aye, it’s more than fog behind this business.”

  “D’ye mean that someone started to pick us up, and then deliberately missed us?”

  “That’s jus’ what happened, Johnnie Angus.”

  “But I can’t believe that anyone would ever do such a thing.”

  “Umph, I’m slow enough myself at catchin’ on. But this here missin’ wasn’t no accident o’ the fog. An’ what’s more, there’s only one skipper afloat that would ‘ave pulled this trick on me.”

  “Who’s that?”

  “Black Dan Campbell o’ the Dundee!”

  CHAPTER XXXVI

  How We Made It

  Clinging there to that upturned dory, left to drown like rats, a fire of resentment began to flame up within me. Indeed, so intense was my feeling that all thought of self was clean blotted out of mind.

  As the treachery of Black Dan Campbell began to sink in, it seemed to call forth a new and grim determination, a sudden surge of strength where there had been naught but weakness.

  “Thinks that the fog will hide his treachery. Thinks that he’s seen the last o’ the MacPhees.”

  If ever I had desired to live it was now.

  The more I pondered over what had happened the more impatient I became. Instead of sagging on the support, as I had formerly done, I found myself suddenly scourged into fevered action.

  Loosening the bowline, by which I was made? fast, I began to struggle with the dory bottom in an effort to get her back again upon an even keel.

  “What ye tryin’ to do?” muttered Uncle Jock.

  “I want to right the dory.”

  “Now ye’re talkin’; that’s better than playin’ the quitter. But we’ll have to wait a bit.”

  “Why wait?”

  “Seas are too rough yet, but they are going down.”

  On account of the fire within, passive waiting now seemed impossible.

  “Can’t be lyin’ here doin’ nothin’ forever.”

  “But ye’d better conserve yer energies, son; no good makin’ a fool o’ yerself fightin’ something too big fer ye. Just keep yer shirt on and everything’ll be all right.”

  Realizing the sense of this advice, I held myself in leash, while we fell to discussing Black Dan and all the treacheries he had played against our clan.

  The loss of my father, which had sometimes been in doubt, now seemed to be established beyond question. With this thought in his mind, Uncle Jock burst out:

  “A man who’d leave another to drown on an upturned dory, wouldn’t stop at nothi
n’. ‘Twas him all right that done Neil foul that night when he was lost in Chedabucto Bay. What he tried to do to me this night, is what he done to me brother.”

  “An’ we’ll get him yet,” I muttered as a fervent prayer.

  “Aye, and that we will,” responded Uncle Jock.

  Finally, after half a dozen impatient starts, the Skipper considered that the sea had subsided sufficiently to allow an effort to right the dory.

  This task under normal conditions would have been easy enough to negotiate. But on account of exhaustion and lack of food, it was now a case of the spirit willing and the body weak. Again and again we almost succeeded, only to be forced back, panting and spent, as though the sea were merely trying to mock our puny strength.

  “No good killin’ ourselves tryin’ the impossible. Still have a good chance o’ bein’ picked up, ye know. See the fog’s clearin’.”

  But there was no idea of quitting in my mind, and I kept at it intermittently. While Uncle Jock was still cautioning me to desist, a lifting wave happened to give an added kick to my weakened efforts, and suddenly, against expectation, the dory swung over on to its bottom.

  Maneuvering carefully at bow and stern, we managed to get into position, to prevent her capsizing once more, after which we commenced to bail her out.

  As usual I was too eager, and drew sharp comment from Uncle Jock.

  “Easy, there, easy! Have her over again, if ye don’t look out.”

  Finally the gunnel began to rise above the surface, and while I still clung to the bows, Uncle Jock climbed aboard and soon had her bailed dry.

  Fortunately the sail, oars, spars, and trawl tub, which we had lashed together to act as a drogue, were all made fast, otherwise we would probably have lost them all when the boat went over.

  As there was a light inshore breeze making up, we stepped the mast and proceeded to put the sail to her, and soon had her heading in with satisfaction.

  “Do you know just where we are?”

  “Got a fair idea, but we ought to speak someone soon.”