For the first time, that day, we saw the flood tide march up to the high-water mark, to leave our poor island shrunk to a mere nothing, barely rising above the tops of the combers that swept at us and past usthough in the sweeping it helped us in our efforts to draw the sails and spars closer.
In my pain and weariness and terrorand in that terror I was not aloneI had thoughts that helped and thoughts that hindered. If at flood tide the breakers crowded up so close to us, where would they be when December's full moon and spring tide were upon usand every shore has its spring tide twice a month, at new moon and full moontides far higher than ordinary tides: so high that they seem bent on submerging land that cannot be submerged at any other time.
And how could my tutors and professors at Oxford have pretended to find truth and beauty in the adventures of Ulysses? Ulysses, confronted by such tribulations as those that surrounded us, couldn't have helped himselfcould only have turned to and been succored by a god or a goddess in the shape of somebody or otherperhaps by Minerva in the form of an eagle. If he had been in our dire straits, ever-dependable Mercury would have built for him a stout ship from newly cut lumberyes, and seasoned it for him, too. Mercury would even have done it for him on Boon Island, where no tree grew!
In a vision Minerva would have told him how to discover a great store of cheese. In the depths of his distress, Minerva would have appeared to comfort and encourage
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himto restore to him the beauty of his youth; Jupiter would have thundered from heaven, ordering the seas to subside!
But the unhappy truth was that nothing like the Odyssey has ever been or ever will be. The troubles of Ulysses were brought upon him by his own stupidity and not, as Homer would have us believe, by the vindictiveness of Poseidon, that green-whiskered ruler of the vasty deep. The dreadful facts we faced on Boon Island taught me that Ulysses was a dilatory and philandering old fool; and if he had been with us on our rock, he'd have been exactly in our situationdespairing, helpless, hopeless, and perpetually on the verge of death.
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December 13th, Wednesday
I hoped that when the northeaster blew itself out, the sea would grow calm, but it didn't. When the wind swung, it backed into the northwest and west, meaning that bad weather had only temporarily abated. We were free of driving snow and rain, but breakers still roared deafeningly on the north and west. They pounded less on the south and east, but still they pounded, throwing off manes of white foam. The wind seemed colder than on the night we were wrecked.
With the break of day I heard Captain Dean calling Neal to come outside. I went out, too, to find the captain staring off to the northwest.
''Neal," the captain said, "see if you can remember those maps you drew in the little book."
Neal said he remembered.
"Can you recall the chief places you lettered on the maps, starting with Cape Porpoise?" the captain asked.
"Cape Porpoise," Neal said, "Cape Arundel, Bald Head Cliff, Cape Neddick"
"That's it," the captain cried. "Bald Head Cliff! That's
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where the waves shoot up, yonder, and this is Boon Island! The last time I sailed east from Portsmouth, I sailed between Boon Island and Cape Neddick! Boon Island was to starboard and Bald Head Cliff to larboard!"
As the eastern sky grew brighter we could see the high dark red rock face of Bald Head Cliff. Spouts of spray rose high against it.
If we'd gone ashore on Bald Head Cliff in a northeaster, instead of on Boon Island, the ship and every last one of us would have been battered to a pulp in a minute's time.
Captain Dean, cheered by the sight of the mainland, lay flat to crawl beneath the shelter and shout the good news to those within.
"Listen," he said. "I know where we are! We're on Boon Island! Just south of us are the Isles of Shoals, where the Pepperrells and other Portsmouth people have fish stages. All winter there's fishing off the Isles of Shoals. There'll be fishing shallops passing us from every directionPortsmouth, Kittery, York. If we set up something they can see, they'll find us. They'll take us off. But unless all of you get out and go to work, we won't be able to set up anything. Your blood won't circulate. You'll die. You've got to come out and drag cordage and junk."
Nobody said a word.
"Another thing," Captain Dean said. "There's seals off the south side of this island. I saw their heads in the water, following me and watching me, just after dawn, the way they always do. There's ducks, thousands of 'em, swimming in big flocks off the south shore.
"Seals have to rest somewhere. If I can catch one of 'em asleep around midnight, we'll have enough to eat for a month. He'll have fat that maybe we can set fire to."
"Where's the rest of that cheese?" Langman asked.
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"Right here with Neal Butler," Captain Dean said. "Those who want it must come out and get it."
He backed out himself, and behind him crawled the remnants of our wretched company, with the exception of Cooky Sipper. Even Graystock and Saver came out, looking like corpses.
The captain took the canvas-wrapped cheese from Neal. "Go for seaweed to eat with it," he told Neal. "I'll cut and pass out the cheese myself."
He gave each of us a little cube of cheese. When he came to Graystock and Saver, he went upwind of them and eyed them contemptuously.
"You didn't eat your cheese yesterday," the captain said. "It's been saved for you, and I'm giving you yesterday's and today's too. You don't deserve either. You've been letting the rest of us work for you, and by rights your rations ought to go to those who've been doing the work."
"We were sick, and couldn't work," Graystock said.
"You're a liar," Captain Dean said. "Cooky Sipper's sick and can't stand up, but you're no sicker than the rest of us. You're scared, that's all! If you weren't, you'd get up and move off to do what has to be done, same as the rest of us. You've got to stay human, not be like helpless babies, or pigs that can be smelled a mile down-wind!" The captain was furious, no doubt about it, but he held himself under control, which isn't easy when dealing with people like Graystock and Saveror Langman.
He gave them their little ration of cheese; then turned back to the rest of us. "Up to now," he told us harshly, "I haven't said anything about Saver and Graystock, but now I know where we arenow I'm able to see the things
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God gives us, so we can help ourselves and help each otherI'm going to say something. Yes, and about anyone who thinks he can do like Saver and Graystock."
"It's your duty as captain," Langman said, "to encourage your men: not to discourage 'em."
Captain Dean rounded on him. "What do you think I am doing? You ought to be called Wrong-end Langman! I want Graystock and Saver to go to work and help save themselves, instead of refusing to work. They're doing nothing but setting the rest of us an example in discouragement and despair. Nobody ever accomplished anything in this world without working day and night; but most people are such damned fools that they don't want to work at all, not at anything, just like Saver and Graystock. Give 'em a free hand and they won't even work to save their lives! You know the most discouraging thing in the world, Langman? It's for a lot of hardworking people to have to look at and listen to those who'd like to keep on living without doing anything at all."
I suppose," Langman said, "I was Wrong-end Langman when I said you wanted to run us ashore."
Captain Dean looked at him long and hard. "Mr. Langman," he said, "don't forget that you were No-lookout Langman before we struck. Just what is it that you'd do, right now, if you had the say?"
"I'd build a boat," Langman said promptly.
"With nothing but a hammer, a cutlass, a caulking mallet and our pocket knives?" Captain Dean asked.
Langman glowered at him.
"I'll tell you exactly what we must do first of all," Captain Dean said. "We have to locate the highest point on this rock able to hold a mast that won't blow down. A
mast that people on shore may be able to see if they ever come to the water's edge to look for driftwood or seaweed, or if they ever put out for fish or lobsters. Then we have to build a tent around it.
"Even before we do that we need oakum to lie on: oakum to protect our faces and hands and feet: oakum for caps and mittens and bellybands: oakum to keep the wind from blowing the tent to pieces: oakum to keep the rain from driving through the canvas. What's more, we can't build a boat until we have oakum. The sort of boat we build will need all the oakum we can pick between dawn and dark for a year!
"So right now we'll start to separate all the junk we pulled ashore yesterday.
"While we do that, I want Chips Bullock and Swede Butler to pick the highest spot they can findpreferably a smooth piece of ledge that has a crack in it that will let us step a mast with a canvas flag on topa big one, that can be seen six miles away.
"I'm putting Neal Butler in charge of making white oakum from the tangled cordage and black oakum from the tarred shrouds. He's to take Hallion with him and Saver and Graystock and George White.
"I want Mr. Langman with mealso Mr. Whitworth and GrayMellen and my brother Henry. We'll free the yards of whatever junk is fastened to them, and save all the cordage that can be used to lash down the tent.
"When the mast for the new tent is stepped, all usable things are to be brought close to the mast.
"In addition to all these things, we'll have to patrol this island at dawn each day, and at sundown, and again at high tide and low tide. I'll take the first patrol with George
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White. Miles Whitworth will take the second patrol with Neal Butler. Mr. Langman'll take the third patrol with Nicholas Mellen. Swede Butler will take the fourth patrol with Henry Dean. Chips Bullock will take the fifth patrol with Christopher Gray."
For the first time Langman seemed to have no objection to Captain Dean's plans. "What about this shelter we've been living in for the past three nights?"
"You mean last night," Captain Dean said. "I'll tell you what about it. We'll floor it with oakum, and if any one of us falls so low that he can't relieve himself as he's supposed to doby going to the place I select as a head and taking his breeches down and otherwise behaving in a civilized and Christian mannerhe'll stay nights in this shelter until he's fit to live with other humans. For that matter, we may all have to stay here one more night, until the oakum's picked, the canvas separated from that pile of junk, and the cordage straightened so it can be used.
"Meanwhile the cutlass and Chips's hammer and the caulking mallet are to be used by those who do the separating. And I'll be responsible for them.
"Those who pick oakum will have to do it with their own pocket knivesand before the oakum-picking starts, I want Neal Butler to take Saver and Graystock to a pool of water on the south side of this island and see that they clean their breeches as well as they can be cleaned. Let it be a lesson to youthat I have to put a boy in charge of grown men to make sure they keep clean."
The ruin a furious ocean can wreak on a stout ship in an hour's time is beyond the comprehension of those who haven't seen it. It wrenches spikes from wet wood. It knots
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cordage into such intricacies as hangman's knots, six-strand Matthew Walkers, double cat's-paws, three-bight Turk's-heads. It smashes a main yard in the slings, strips a stern post from an inner post as readily as a child twists off a doll's foot.
The first thing we freed from the mass of junk was the foretopsail yard for Chips and Swede to use as the center post of the tent. It was lodged in a frozen hoorah's-nest of canvas, rigging and ratlins that defied our knives almost as though it had been made of iron.
Captain Dean constantly urged us to cut the tarred rope in eight-inch lengths. "If ever we're able to make a fire," he said, "we'll probably have the tarred rope to thank for it; and the lengths'll have to be short or they won't dry."
The foretopsail yard was only half freed when Neal came stumbling to us.
"Cooky's dead," he told the captain.
The captain snapped his pocket knife shut, stared hard at Neal: then straightened up to look at the breakers, dirty green-white in the watery morning sunlight.
"How do you know?" he asked heavily.
"I took him the first oakum we made," Neal said. "I thought it might make him easier. His mouth was filled with phlegm. I tried to get it out, but couldn't." He stared at his hands and added, "His face was black. He must have choked to death."
"I see," Captain Dean said. He examined his damaged fingers, stooped for a stone with which to pry open his knife again; peered at the blade as though he found it strange: then caught up a rope-end and haggled off a fifteen-foot length.
"Well," he said slowly, "go back to your oakum pickers.
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Send White to the shelter. He and I'll take care of Cooky. We'll have to take him to the south shore and put him in the water. There's just a possibility he might float to York and start someone looking for us."
To me he said, "Keep right on as you are. See the others do, too."
He gave me the hammer.
"Couldn't you take his coat for yourself?" Neal asked.
"Why yes," Captain Dean said, "I think it would be all right to take his coat."
They stumbled off together across the icy rocks, and we went on freeing the foretopsail yard of its twisted accumulation of junk.
I was sorry to see them go, because there were a few things that I should have said to Captain Dean.
I wanted to speak about eating. This morning and yesterday morning each one of us had eaten as much seaweed as could be packed into a pint mug, and less than half that amount of cheese. Already my stomach felt gassy and abraded, as though I had been kicked there.
Now the cheese was gone. The captain had spoken about going out at midnight in the hope of finding a seal asleep on the rocks, but I knew a little something about seals from watching them come up the Thames after whitebait.
Neither Captain Dean nor anybody else was going to find a seal sleeping on ledges in this kind of weather, when a single wave could crush a seal against a rock as readily as it could crush a cheese. They slept while floating where waves only rocked them like a cradle.
There was a thought hidden in all this, but it eluded me. My brain, like all the rest of me, was numb from cold and
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wet clothes, which felt as though nothing, not even heat, could ever dry them.
Seals, I thought confusedly, ate anything. They'd certainly eat cheese, and I'd heard that somewhere on the lower Thames a seal had killed a woman and eaten her. If that was so, then a seal would be quick to bite at Cooky Sipper's body, whether it floated or sankwhether it was clothed or unclothed. Therefore there was no reason why Captain Dean shouldn't take Cooky's coat for himself, and the rest of his clothes for those who needed themand there wasn't one of us who didn't need more clothes.
I looked over my shoulder toward the patch of canvas under which we'd sheltered. Captain Dean and George White were dragging Cooky's body over the icy rocks and ledges. The rope was fastened around Cooky's neck, and I was glad to see that the body was unclothed, so there apparently was no need for me to mention those confused thoughts of mine to the captain.
There were some other things, though, that I hadn't said, and it was hard for me to remember what they were. With our cheese gone, we would have nothing to eat, so if the captain wanted Cooky's body to float ashore, it seemed to me, he'd do better to leave the body on a rock, where it would freeze. If it were frozen, it would float, maybe, as a cake of ice floats.
Boon Island: including Contemporary Accounts of the Wreck of the Nottingham Galley Page 21