The Adventures of Billy Topsail

by Norman Duncan

  CHAPTER XXII

  _The Crew of the Fish Killer Finds Refuge on an Iceberg, and Discovers Greater Safety Elsewhere, after Which the Cook is Mistaken for a Fool, but puts the Crew to Shame_

  ROBINSON caught the child from the berth. He paused--it was an instinctborn of Labrador experience--to wrap a blanket about her, though shewas clothed for the day. She reminded him quietly that she would catchcold without her cap; and this he snatched in passing. Then he was ondeck--in the midst of a litter from aloft and of a vast confusion ofterrified cries.

  Before she struck, the _Fish Killer_ had ascended a gently shelvingbeach of ice, washed smooth by the sea. There she hung precariously.Her stem was low, so low that the choppy sea came aboard and swampedthe cabin; and the bow was high on the ice. Her bowsprit was insplinters, her topmast on deck, her spliced mainmast tottering; she wasthe bedraggled wreck of a craft.

  Beyond, the berg towered into the fog, stretched into the fog; only abroken wall of blue-white ice was visible. The butt of the bowspritoverhung a wide ledge. To scramble to the shattered extremity, to hangby the hands, to drop to safe foothold: this would all have been easyfor children. The impulse was to seek the solid berg in haste beforethe schooner had time to fall away and sink.

  Robinson ran forward.

  "Got that kid?" Skipper Libe demanded. "Ah, you has! Billy Topsail!" heroared.

  Billy answered.

  "Get ashore on that ice!" the skipper ordered.

  Billy ran out on the broken bowsprit and dropped to the berg. He lookedback expectantly.

  "Take the kid!"

  A push sent Robinson on the same road. He dropped Mary into Billy'swaiting arms. Then he, too, looked back for orders.

  "Ashore with you!"

  Robinson swung by the hands and dropped. Before he let go his hands hehad felt the vessel quiver and begin to recede from her position.

  "Now, men," said the skipper, "grub! She'll be off in a minute."

  Every man of them leaped willingly to the imperative duty. The foodwas in the forecastle and hold; they disappeared. Skipper Libe keptwatch on deck. With the waves restless beneath her stern, the schoonerwas perilously insecure. She was gradually working her way back to thesea. The briefest glance below had already assured Skipper Libe thather timbers were hopelessly sprung.

  She was old--rotten with age and hard service. The water was pouring inforward and amidships; it ran aft in a flood, contributing its weightto the vessel's inclination to slip away from the berg. It was slowin the beginning, this retreat; but through every moment the movementwas accelerated. Five minutes--four--three: in a space too brief to becounted upon she would be wallowing in the sea.

  "Haste!" the skipper screamed.

  Waiting was out of the question. The _Fish Killer_ was aboutto drop into the sea. Though the men had but tumbled into theforecastle--though as yet they had had no time to seize the food ofwhich to-morrow would find them in desperate need--the skipper roaredthe order to return.

  "Ashore! Ashore!" he shouted.

  They came back more willingly, more expeditiously, than they had gone;and they came back empty-handed. Not a man among them had so much as asingle biscuit.

  "Jim!" said the skipper.

  With that, Jim Tall, the cook, clambered out on the bowsprit. Theothers of the crew waited, each with an anxious eye upon the skipper.

  "Bill!"

  No sooner was Jim Tall at the end of the bowsprit than Bill wasunderway. The skipper grimly watched his terrified progress.

  "Jack!"

  In turn, Jack Sop scrambled out and dropped to the berg. The schoonerwas fast receding from the ledge. Alexander Budge, John Swan, ArchibaldMann, completing the fishing crew, with the exception of Tom Watt, thefirst hand, and the skipper, won the ice.

  "Now, Tom!" said the skipper.

  "You, sir!"

  "Tom!" Skipper Libe roared; and you may be sure that Tom Watt waited nolonger.

  Only the skipper was left. The change from his passive attitude--fromhis unbending, reposeful attitude, with a hand carelessly laid on thewindlass--was so sudden and unequivocal that Jim Tall, the cook, whowas ever the wag of the crew, startled even himself with laughter. Itwas instant. Skipper Libe in a flash turned from a petrified man into aterrified and marvellously agile monkey. He bounded for the bowsprit,nimbly ran the broken length of it, and there stood swaying. The vesselwas now so far from the ledge, and so fast receding, that he paused.Delay had but one issue. This was so apparent that horror tied thetongues of the crew. Not a cry of warning was uttered. The situationwas too intense, too brief, for utterance.

  "Tom," said the skipper to the first hand, "catch!"

  He leaped.

  "Skipper," said Tom Watt, in the uttermost confusion, an instant later,"glad t' see you! Come in! You isn't a minute too early."

  In this way, proceeding with admirable self-possession, the soulsaboard the _Fish Killer_ jumped from the frying-pan. Whether or notit was into the fire was not for a moment in doubt. When the schoonerhad once fairly reached the sea, which immediately happened, she sank.They saw her waver, slowly settle, disappear; when her topmast wenttottering under water the end had come.

  Whatever may be said of a frying-pan, nobody can accuse the crew of the_Fish Killer_ of having come within reach of a fire. Aboard the bergit was cold--awfully cold. Icebergs carry an atmosphere of that sorteven into the Gulf Stream; they radiate cold so effectively that thecaptains of steamers take warning and evade them. It was cold--very,very cold. There was nothing to temper the numbing bitterness of thesituation. And what the night might bring could only be surmised.

  * * * * *

  Though they were born to lives of hardship and peril, though they hadlong been used to the chances of the sea, not one of the castaways hadever before fallen into a predicament so barren of hope. Flung on aniceberg, adrift on the wild North Atlantic, derelict where no shipspassed, at the mercy of the capricious winds, without food or fire:there seemed to be no possibility of escape. But for a time they didnot despair; and, moreover, for a time each felt it a high duty to makelight of the situation, to joke of cold-storage and polar bears, thatthe spirits of the others might be encouraged. As dusk approached,however, the ghastly humour failed. Ruin, agony, grief, imminent death;in the moody silence, they dwelt, rather, upon these things.

  It was not yet dark when a faint shock, a hardly perceptible shiver,a crash from aloft, a subsiding rumble, apprised the castaways of aportentous change of condition.

  "What's that, now?" growled the cook.

  It was a cruelly anxious moment. Only the event itself would determinewhether or not the berg was to turn turtle. They waited.

  "She's grounded, I 'low!" exclaimed the skipper.

  There was no further disturbance. Whatever had happened, theequilibrium of the berg had been maintained.

  "I'm thinkin'," said the skipper, "that I'll take a little look about."

  The skipper's "little look about" developed what appeared to be asaving opportunity. The berg had grounded; it had also jammed awandering pack of drift-ice against the land. What that shore was,whether mainland or island, the skipper did not wait to ascertain; itwas sufficient for him to know that the survivors of the _Fish Killer_might escape from a disintegrating berg to solid ground.

  He returned, breathless, with the enlivening news; and in livelyfashion, which almost approached a panic, the castaways abandoned theberg. It was a hard, painful, dangerous scramble, made in the failinglight, and the cook had an unwelcome bath in the icy water betweentwo pans; but it had a successful issue. Before dark, they were allashore--more hopeful, now, than they had been, but still staring deathin the face.

  So curious was Skipper Libe that, taking advantage of the last of thelight, he set out to discover the character of the refuge. He returneddiscouraged.

  "'Tis but a rock," said he. "'Tis no more than a speck o' land."

  Then night fell. Robinson's little daughter was by
this time on thepoint of succumbing to the exposure. Cold, hunger and despair hadreduced her to a pitiable silence. She was in the extremity of physicalexhaustion. They made a deep hollow in the snow in the shelter of adeclivity of rock; and there they bestowed her, gladly yielding theirjackets to provide her with such comfort as they could. But this wassmall mitigation of the hardship. The child was still hopeless andcold. It was sadly apparent that she could not survive the night. AndRobinson knew that to-morrow and to-morrow--a long stretch of days--laybefore them all. There was no hope for a frail body; weakness wasdeath. In his heart he frankly admitted that he was about to lose hischild.

  He lay down beside her. "Mary, dear," he pleaded, "don't give up!"

  She pressed his hand.

  "Don't give up!" he repeated.

  A wan smile came and went. "I can't help it," she whispered.

  Skipper Libe and his men withdrew. It was now near midnight. The fogwas lifting. Stars twinkled in patches of black sky. Low towards theseaward horizon the moon was breaking through the clouds.

  Suddenly the cook sat bolt upright. "Skipper," he demanded, "where iswe?"

  "On the Devil's Teeth."

  "An' what rock's this?"

  "This?"

  "Ay--_this_!"

  "I'd not be s'prised," the skipper answered, "if 'tis what they callsthe Cocked Hat."

  "Feather's Folly!" roared the cook.

  "Which?" said the skipper, suspiciously.

  The cook was on his feet--dancing in glad excitement. "Feather'sFolly!" he shouted "Feather's Folly!"

  "Catch un!" said the skipper, quietly. "He've gone mad."

  They set upon the poor cook. Before he could escape they had him fast.He was tripped, thrown, sat upon.

  "Don't let him up," the skipper warned. "He'll do hisself hurt. Poorman!" he sighed. "He've lost his senses."

  "Mad!" screamed the cook. "_You're_ mad. Feather's Folly! We're saved!"

  "Hold un tight," said the skipper.

  But the cook was not to be held. He wriggled free and bolted. BillyTopsail and all took after him, the skipper in the lead; and by thedim, changing light of that night he led them a mad chase over rock andthrough drifted snow. They pursued, they headed him off, they laid holdof his flying coat-tail; but he eluded them, dodged, sped, doubled.If he were mad, there was method in his madness. He was searchingevery square yard of that acre of uneven rock. At last, panting andperspiring, he came to a full stop and turned triumphantly upon hispursuers. He had found what he sought.

  "Mad!" he laughed. "Who's mad, now? Eh? Who's crazy?"

  The crew stared.

  "Who's crazy?" the cook roared. "Look at that! What d'ye make o' that?"

  "It looks," the skipper admitted, "like salvation!"

  * * * * *

  Old man Feather had indeed "seen that it wouldn't happen again." Hehad provided for castaways on the Cocked Hat. There was a tight littlehut in the lee of the Bishop's Nose; within, there were provisionsand blankets and fire-wood and candles. Moreover, in the sprawling,misspelled welcome, tacked to the wall, there was even the hearteninginformation that "seegars is in the kityun tabl." The passengers andcrew of the _Fish Killer_ were soon warm and satisfied. They spenta happy night--a night so changed, so cozy, so bountiful, that theyblessed old man Feather until their tongues were tired. And old manFeather, himself, who kept watch on the Cocked Hat with a spy-glass,took them off to Hulk's Harbour in the clear weather of the next day.

  "An' did you find the cigars, skipper?" he whispered, with a wide,proud grin.

  "Us did."

  "An' was they good? Hist! now," the old fellow repeated, with a wink ofmystery, "_wasn't_ they good?"

  "Well," the skipper drawled, not ungraciously, you may be sure, "thecook made bad weather of it. But he double-reefed hisself an' livedthrough. 'Twas the finest an' the first cigar he ever seed."

  The old man chuckled delightedly.