There was a considerable
silence as the boat bumped over the furrowed sea to deeper water. Then
somebody in gloom spoke. "Well, anyhow, they must have seen us from
the shore by now."
The gulls went in slanting
flight up the wind toward the gray desolate east. A squall, marked by
dingy clouds, and clouds brick-red, like smoke from a burning building,
appeared from the southeast.
"What do you think of
those life-saving people? Ain't they peaches?"
"Funny they haven't seen
us."
"Maybe they think we're
out here for sport! Maybe they think we're fishin'. Maybe they think
we're damned fools."
It was a long afternoon. A
changed tide tried to force them southward, but wind and wave said
northward. Far ahead, where coast-line, sea, and sky formed their mighty
angle, there were little dots which seemed to indicate a city on the
shore.
"St. Augustine?"
The captain shook his head.
"Too near Mosquito Inlet."
And the oiler rowed, and then
the correspondent rowed. Then the oiler rowed. It was a weary business.
The human back can become the seat of more aches and pains than are
registered in books for the composite anatomy of a regiment. It is a
limited area, but it can become the theatre of innumerable muscular
conflicts, tangles, wrenches, knots, and other comforts.
"Did you ever like to
row, Billie?" asked the correspondent.
"No," said the
oiler. "Hang it."
When one exchanged the
rowing-seat for a place in the bottom of the boat, he suffered a bodily
depression that caused him to be careless of everything save an
obligation to wiggle one finger. There was cold sea-water swashing to
and fro in the boat, and he lay in it. His head, pillowed on a thwart,
was within an inch of the swirl of a wave crest, and sometimes a
particularly obstreperous sea came in-board and drenched him once more.
But these matters did not annoy him. It is almost certain that if the
boat had capsized he would have tumbled comfortably out upon the ocean
as if he felt sure it was a great soft mattress.
"Look! There's a man on
the shore!"
"Where?"
"There! See 'im? See 'im?"
"Yes, sure! He's walking
along."
"Now he's stopped. Look!
He's facing us!"
"He's waving at
us!"
"So he is! By
thunder!"
"Ah, now, we're all
right! Now we're all right! There'll be a boat out here for us in half
an hour."
"He's going on. He's
running. He's going up to that house there."
The remote beach seemed lower
than the sea, and it required a searching glance to discern the little
black figure. The captain saw a floating stick and they rowed to it. A
bath-towel was by some weird chance in the boat, and, tying this on the
stick, the captain waved it. The oarsman did not dare turn his head, so
he was obliged to ask questions.
"What's he doing
now?"
"He's standing still
again. He's looking, I think.... There he goes again. Toward the
house.... Now he's stopped again."
"Is he waving at
us?"
"No, not now! he was,
though."
"Look! There comes
another man!"
"He's running."
"Look at him go, would
you."
"Why, he's on a bicycle.
Now he's met the other man. They're both waving at us. Look!"
"There comes something
up the beach."
"What the devil is that
thing?"
"Why, it looks like a
boat."
"Why, certainly it's a
boat."
"No, it's on
wheels."
"Yes, so it is. Well,
that must be the life-boat. They drag them along shore on a wagon."
"That's the life-boat,
sure."
"No, by—— , it's—it's
an omnibus."
"I tell you it's a
life-boat."
"It is not! It's an
omnibus. I can see it plain. See? One of these big hotel
omnibuses."
"By thunder, you're
right. It's an omnibus, sure as fate. What do you suppose they are doing
with an omnibus? Maybe they are going around collecting the life-crew,
hey?"
"That's it, likely.
Look! There's a fellow waving a little black flag. He's standing on the
steps of the omnibus.
There come those other two
fellows. Now they're all talking together. Look at the fellow with the
flag. Maybe he ain't waving it."
"That ain't a flag, is
it? That's his coat. Why, certainly, that's his coat."
"So it is. It's his
coat. He's taken it off and is waving it around his head. But would you
look at him swing it."
"Oh, say, there isn't
any life-saving station there. That's just a winter resort hotel omnibus
that has brought over some of the boarders to see us drown."
"What's that idiot with
the coat mean? What's he signaling, anyhow?"
"It looks as if he were
trying to tell us to go north. There must be a life-saving station up
there."
"No! He thinks we're
fishing. Just giving us a merry hand. See? Ah, there, Willie."
"Well, I wish I could
make something out of those signals. What do you suppose he means?"
"He don't mean anything.
He's just playing."
"Well, if he'd just
signal us to try the surf again, or to go to sea and wait, or go north,
or go south, or go to hell--there would be some reason in it. But look
at him. He just stands there and keeps his coat revolving like a wheel.
The ass!"
"There come more
people."
"Now there's quite a
mob. Look! Isn't that a boat?"
"Where? Oh, I see where
you mean. No, that's no boat."
"That fellow is still
waving his coat."
"He must think we like
to see him do that. Why don't he quit it. It don't mean anything."
"I don't know. I think
he is trying to make us go north. It must be that there's a life-saving
station there somewhere."
"Say, he ain't tired
yet. Look at 'im wave."
"Wonder how long he can
keep that up. He's been revolving his coat ever since he caught sight of
us. He's an idiot. Why aren't they getting men to bring a boat out. A
fishing boat—one of those big yawls—could come out here all right.
Why don't he do something?"
"Oh, it's all right,
now."
"They'll have a boat out
here for us in less than no time, now that they've seen us."
A faint yellow tone came into
the sky over the low land. The shadows on the sea slowly deepened. The
wind bore coldness with it, and the men began to shiver.
"Holy smoke!" said
one, allowing his voice to express his impious mood, "if we keep on
monkeying out here! If we've got to flounder out here all night!"
"Oh, we'll never have to
stay here all night! Don't you worry. They've seen us now, and it won't
be long before they'll come chasing out after us."
The shore grew dusky. The man
waving a coat blended gradually into this gloom, and it swallowed in the
same manner the omnibus and the group of people. The spray, when it
dashed uproariously over the side, made the voyagers shrink and swear
like men who were being branded.
"I'd like to catch the
chump who waved the coat. I feel like soaking him one, just for
luck."
"Why? What did he
do?"
"Oh, nothing, but then
he seemed so damned cheerful."
In the meantime the oiler
rowed, and then the correspondent rowed, and then the oiler rowed.
Gray-faced and bowed forward, they mechanically, turn by turn, plied the
leaden oars. The form of the light-house had vanished from the southern
horizon, but finally a pale star appeared, just lifting from the sea.
The streaked saffron in the west passed before the all-merging darkness,
and the sea to the east was black. The land had vanished, and was
expressed only by the low and drear thunder of the surf.
"If I am going to be
drowned—if I am going to be drowned—if I am going to be drowned,
why, in the name of the seven mad gods, who rule the sea, was I allowed
to come thus far and contemplate sand and trees? Was I brought here
merely to have my nose dragged away as I was about to nibble the sacred
cheese of life?"
The patient captain, drooped
over the water-jar, was sometimes obliged to speak to the oarsman.
"Keep her head up! Keep
her head up!"
"'Keep her head up,'
sir." The voices were weary and low.
This was surely a quiet
evening. All save the oarsman lay heavily and listlessly in the boat's
bottom. As for him, his eyes were just capable of noting the tall black
waves that swept forward in a most sinister silence, save for an
occasional subdued growl of a crest.
The cook's head was on a
thwart, and he looked without interest at the water under his nose. He
was deep in other scenes. Finally he spoke. "Billie," he
murmured, dreamfully, "what kind of pie do you like best?"
(from Part IV: "The Open Boat")