Boon Island: including Contemporary Accounts of the Wreck of the Nottingham Galley

by Kenneth Roberts

  We stretched canvas over her bow and stern, binding the canvas with cordage. ''It might be," Captain Dean said, "that if waves start slapping us, that canvas may help to keep out some of the spray."

  Her height was a little increased by running a long strip of canvas around her, fastened to the stanchions; but it was too low. It had to be, so that the men who knelt in the boat could use the oars as paddles.

  Page 245

  Remembering now how that boat looked, I can't believe that so many of us were eager to trust ourselves to her. Today I wouldn't trust such a travesty of a craft to get me across the Isis at Oxford, but it's easy to forget what a man will do when he's faced on the one hand with certain death, and on the other hand with a chance to live.

  The easiest thing to say is that we were insane because of the things we'd endured. Surely I was insane, because I was eager to go. I was even sorry for Swede and Chips, who weren't strong enough to do so, and for all the others who couldn't for lack of space.

  Yet we weren't wholly demented, because we made half a dozen bailing scoopsa simple matter now that we had the axe, though without the axe it would have been beyond our powers.

  And we spent the last hours, right up to dark, in clearing seaweed-covered boulders from the narrow passageway down which the boat would have to be pushed in order to reach the sea. So we were sane enough to know that if a wave let this strange boat down on such a boulder, we'd have small chance of saving ourselves.

  We spent those hours, too, in cutting seaweed to floor the ledge on which the boat rested, and to cover all the interval down to the growing seaweed. Without that protection, the canvas shroud on which the floor boards had been laid would have been cut to ribbons on barnacles by the time we got her to the water.

  As we cut the seaweed, we ate as much of it as we could stomach; for the tide, high at noon, had shut us off from the mussel pools that were reachable only at low water.

  In the tent, that night, I may have slept a little, but only a little, because of the excited discussions as to when the

  Page 246

  boat should be launched. Sometimes my hearing blurred, and there seemed to be breaks in the talk. This, I suppose, was sleep, for when my ears snapped open, someone, always, was talking.

  The tide was low at seven in the morning, high an hour after noon, and low again at two hours after dark.

  What, then, was it best to do?

  To start at dawn, when the ocean might be stillest?

  No: there was the great stretch of seaweed to be crossed at low tide, and the danger of falling!

  Yes, but over against that was the hazard of arriving at our destination when the tide was high, concealing perilous ledges and possibly covering beaches that might, at low tide, be reached even though the boat were swamped.

  To start at flood tide, then? That would mean that the tide would be falling when we reached our destination, and that offshore currents might push us away.

  Ah yes, but beaches would be exposedmore safely approached. Offshore ledges would be revealedmore readily skirted.

  Some argued for starting on the half-risen tide in the morning.

  Langman in the beginning argued against all starting times that were proposed, and in the end argued for all of them. I think he wanted to take credit for anything good that happened, and dodge the responsibility for anything bad. The world is full of people like that, but most of them haven't Langman's malice.

  Page 247

  December 21st, Thursday

  The day, to the amazement and delight of all, was better for our purpose than any we had so far seen, though bitter cold. The sun rose red but unclouded, and there was a glassy sheen to the sea. On the north shore there were breakers, though not bad ones. On the south shore the swells came in from both directions, to gurgle, hiss and sigh along the brown seaweed-covered fingers of ledge, but for the most part they surged in without breaking to spend themselves in foam.

  The captain urged everyone from the tent at daybreak. "Tide's dead low," he shouted. "We've got a lot to do today, so try to get enough mussels to last you through tomorrow."

  I knew what he had in mind. He hadn't liked the looks of that red sky in the east.

  When we were back in the tent, hacking with our knives at those miserable mussels and chewing our hated seaweed, the captain said, almost diffidently, that he had been thinking about the boat and her launching.

  "I know we made seven oars," he said, "but I've come

  Page 248

  to the conclusion that seven is too many to pack into a boat that size and shape, even when she's well built. It seems to me that two would be better than seven."

  When he would have continued, his words were drowned by a roar of protest. The loudest roar came from Swede Butler, but Langman's was almost as loud.

  "If only two go," Swede cried, "you wouldn't take Neal, and it was Neal found the axe! Without the axe you'd still be working on that boat! If anybody deserves to go, Neal does."

  "It was my axe to begin with," Chips rasped. "I need medical help."

  "It wasn't yours any more after you'd lost it," Swede said. "It belonged to all of us, same as a seagull would belong to all of us if we could catch one."

  Langman shouted, "You needn't think I'm going to sit here like a bump on a log while the captain goes ashore all alone to spread the news about how he didn't wreck us on Boon Island on purpose! No, sir! I'm going in that boat if anyone does!"

  Captain Dean looked sick. "I still think seven is too many. Would you be willing to try it with just me alone?"

  "Oh no!" Langman said. "I haven't forgotten how you hit me with the loggerhead the night we went ashore! I wouldn't want anything like that to happen again."

  The captain looked at him intently. "I hit you because you'd stolen supplies that rightly belonged to all of us. You were mutinous! You planned to take the ship for yourself and White and Mellen."

  Langman's eye was sardonic. "Who'd believe such drivel! Just to make sure you don't slander innocent men without giving 'em a chance to answer, I insist on taking

  Page 249

  White and Mellen. They'll have fair play or I'll know the reason why."

  "In that case, Captain," Swede said, "you'll have to take my boy, and you'll have to go yourself, because you're captain. You might as well take two more. You'll have to do a lot of rowing, and the best men we've got are none too strong."

  "It's too many," the captain repeated. "But if that's the way you want it, Mr. Langman, I'll fill the boat. I'll take my brother because he is my brother, and I'll take Mr. Whitworth because I promised his father I'd share and share alike with him."

  A chorus of complaint went up from Saver and Graystock, that wholly worthless pair, from Chips Bullock, who was so weak from his lung trouble that he could hardly get to his feet, from Christopher Gray the gunner and Harry Hallion. We crawled from the tent as fast as we could, and for once were grateful for the ear-filling rumble of the breakers, which kept us from hearing the brainless clacking of those we left behind.

  It was decided that when we slid the boat into the water at dead high tide, the captain and Neal Butler should be in her, while the rest of us waded in to hold her firm until she was free and clear. Then the captain was to pull in Langman, whereupon the two of them would hoist in the other four, with Neal steadying the boat with the steering oar.

  Those we were leaving, barring Chips, who couldn't stand, came to the launching-ledge and crouched there, five unkempt specimens of humanity, all haggard and hairy. I suppose none of us, with the exception of Neal,

  Page 250

  looked better; but we could use our hands and feet, whereas those we were leaving either couldn't or pretended they couldn't. Thus we felt sorry for them, and those for whom one feels sorry seem sadly woeful.

  "Well," the captain said, and his eyes wandered from man to man of those sorry five, "pray for courage, and don't stop moving. If we can reach shore, you'll have help and warmth and food and de
cent clothing."

  He seemed to search his mind for something more to say, couldn't find it and so laid hold of the bow of the boat and started her down the seaweed-strewn ledge toward the water.

  I imagined I knew how he feltempty inside, wrung dry by cold, hunger and the prospect of that long row to the mainland in this cranky contraption of driftwood and old canvas.

  "Where's the axe?" Langman asked. "Where's the hammer?"

  Swede shook a fist at him. "You don't need the axe and the hammer!" he cried. "You've got to leave us something!"

  White stumbled up with both tools and gave Langman the axe.

  "Captain Dean," Swede shouted. "Don't let 'em take those tools!"

  The captain spoke mildly to Langman. "You might as well leave them."

  There was something snake-like about Langman's face, in spite of his black beard. He lowered his head and faced Dean defiantly. "They couldn't use 'em, even if we left 'em," he said. "Even if there was anything to use 'em on,

  Page 251

  their hands won't hold 'em. They've got the saw. When we reach land we may need those tools to build a better boat."

  Nobody answered. We were too intent on the long swells rolling toward uson waiting for the large one, the third wave, after which we might expect two rollers that would be less troublesome.

  The captain raised his hand and shouted, "Now!"

  "Push her in," Langman cried. He dropped the axe in the stern, bawled at the captain to get aboard, and signaled Neal to climb in as well. White tossed the hammer after the axe.

  She slipped easily enough over the thick layer of seaweed we had spread beneath her. Her bow floated and rose up. With the canvas strip we had stretched above her sides, she had only eighteen inches freeboard.

  We waded in with her, up to our knees, up to our middles. The shock of the water on my feet and legs was indescribable, because pain cannot be described.

  Captain Dean, looking seaward, waved his arms wildly. "Hold her!" he screamed. "Back her!"

  Ahead of the boat I saw a long swell moving in from the south. On its crest were the heads of a dozen seals, all staring down at me.

  "Pull her back!" Captain Dean cried. "Pull!"

  The boat was sluggish and immovable in my hands, and the icy water around my middle drove the wind from me. I had no strength to pull.

  I felt her rising and rising. I caught her gunnel to rise with her. She turned sideways and loomed, tilted, like a slanted roof, before my face. I saw Captain Dean and Neal

  Page 252

  slide down against the gunnel, with oars tumbling all around them. I made a despairing, fruitless clutch at the axe, caught among the oars.

  Then the wave broke, the boat turned over and above me, and I was buried in a choking smother of foam through which I struggled while icy thoughts darted like needles in my brain.

  This was the end of it! Our precious axe was lost again; the hammer as well; all the oakum we had picked so endlessly; all the oars that had tortured us; all the planks and boards so painfully and hopefully pieced together; the stanchions, the canvas, the nails and spikes so arduously assembled! Everything was goneeverything but life itself.

  Page 253

  December 22nd, Friday

  Our clothes froze that night, though we lay close together.

  Probably we had thoughts, in spite of the shudderings that racked all of us when we crawled back to the tent after getting ourselves from the water. If I did have thoughts, I can't recall them, though I remember cursing Langman for putting the axe in the boat.

  Nor can I remember what I thought when Swede came in alone, after we were bedded in our nest of dank oakum.

  "She's gone," Swede said. "Lock, stock and barrel. I tried to hold her, but the tide pulled her out and the waves broke her into a tangle. She floated off to the south."

  He hunted for Neal and wedged himself down beside him.

  "It's started to snow," Swede said. "Thick: from the south. You couldn't have made it!"

  He said no more. In that frigid tent there was silence that was almost tangible, like a fog. Even Captain Dean lay there, staring up at the peak of the tent, above which

  Page 254

  hung the canvas flag that had failed us as utterly as had all our puny but excruciating efforts.

  With the coming of daylight Swede pulled himself to the tent flap. ''The snow's stopped," he said. "The whole world's plastered with it."

  He looked helplessly from the tent, made an effort to get to his feet, fell to his hands and knees.

  "It's got to be scraped off the tent," he said.

  "Why has it?" Langman asked. "Don't Eskimos make houses out of snow? I say leave the snow on the tent. It'll protect us from wind."

  Swede rolled over clumsily to look at Langman. "Langman," he said, "you're a whoreson, beetle-headed, flapear'd knave! You're against everyone and everything, and you keep right on telling lies to try to prove you're right. If we leave the snow on the tent and get more snow, the canvas will split, or it'll fall down on us. Snow's heavy! And you talk about Eskimos!"

  "Eskimos do live under snow," Langman said defensively.

  "Why don't you tell the truth?" Swede snapped. "They live in ice huts, and they have fur clothes and fireyes, and tools. We've got none! It's thanks to you that we're without tools."

  Captain Dean got heavily to his feet. "Now, now!" he said. "We've got to live together. And Swede's right. We'll have to scrape the snow off the tent. If we do, maybe those on shore will see the tent and the flag against the snow."

  "I don't believe it," Swede said bitterly. "If those ashore had their eyes open, they'd have seen this tent and flagpole

  Page 255

  long before now. They're probably like most of the farmers where I come fromspend half their lives walking around with their heads hanging and their mouths open. Well, I'm going to make 'em see us!"

  "I say with all this snow, we ought to stay in the tent," Langman said. "We're all half frozen. We'll slip in the snow and break our legs."

  "No," Captain Dean said. "That's exactly why we can't stay in the tent. We're more than half frozen, and unless we keep moving, we will freeze."

  "If they want to freeze," Swede said, "let 'em! They'd probably be more help to us dead than alive!" He crawled out into the snow, glittering white on the boulders and ledges, and bright blue in the shadows.

  Neal went to the tent-flap to join his father. We heard them scratching at the snow to dislodge it from the sagging tent sides. Then they set off slowly toward the ledge where we had built the boat.

  Since the tide was low at eight in the morning, the captain and George White and Langman and Christopher Gray went to the north side for mussels. We had nine apiece that day, with seaweed in place of bread and sauce and dessert.

  I think the loss of the boat had shocked all of us: first into a state of horrified resignation, then into desperate activitythough Swede's openly contemptuous attack on Langman may have had something to do with waking us from our lethargy. Certainly there was rancor in the mind of everyone able to thinkeven in the minds of Langman's cronies, White and Mellen. In all their faces I saw sullen fury at Langman's folly in putting the axe and the ham-