Boon Island - Kenneth Roberts [112]
"I've made up my mind to one thing," Captain Dean said. "If this raft sets off, I won't be on it."
"That's your privilege," Swede said.
"I won't be on it," Captain Dean said, "because I've
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weighed the chances, and the chances of getting ashore alive with this raft aren't as good as staying alive on this rock. I ought to forbid you to go. Yesterday we saw two sail heading east. They must have come out of the Piscataqua River, making toward the Isles of Shoals. I'd say they're probably running out of salt fish in Portsmouth. Either that, or they need fresh fish. If they run out of fish in Portsmouth, they're bound to run out in York, too, or Cape Porpoise, or some such place. Boats'll put out of those ports, just as they put out of Portsmouth."
Swede put his arm around Neal's shoulders and spoke to Captain Dean. "Captain, I'm leaving here at low tide. You'll help me put her in over yonder, where those ledges point out to the west, won't you?"
I was watching Neal. His eyes seemed to be examining the lashings of that strange raft. They lifted suddenly, met mine and instantly dropped again. They looked hurt, like the eyes of a dog whose master is deserting him.
"Help me get seaweed, Neal," I said.
He climbed obediently from the raft, and as he went, his father's fist rapped him affectionately on the shoulder.
We skirted the tent and started that hated circuit of the island, hunting for any useful thing that might have been sent to us by the sea's grace.
"Neal," I asked, "has your father ever told you he'd like you to go with him on the raft?"
Neal shook his head. "He wouldn't let me. I said I'd go, but he almost snapped my ears off."
"He'll never make it," I said. "Have you asked him not to go?"
"No," Neal admitted. "He wants to go. He's determined to go."
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"Yes," I said, "I can see that."
"He might make it," Neal said, "if he had an onshore wind and a strong man to use the paddle. Anyway, nothing can stop him." He hesitated; then added, "I don't want to stop him."
When I was silent, Neal added, "When he was in the Naval Hospital, he thought he was as good as dead. He said he wasn't pulling his weight, and he was ashamed to be seen in the hospital uniform. On the Nottingham he pulled his weight. He was happy again. He was even happy on this islanduntil his feet froze. Then he couldn't pull his weight any more. He thinks this raft'll let him pull his weight."
"Not if he doesn't get ashore," I reminded him.
"He doesn't look at it that way," Neal said. "He says everything's in his favor. He says somebody may see him if he gets halfway to land. He says if he gets almost to land, somebody's sure to see him. He says if he doesn't get to land and the raft does, they'll find the raftand then they'll find us."
"You wouldn't stop him if you could, would you?" I asked.
"No, I wouldn't," Neal said. "If he let me or anybody or anything stop him, he'd never forgive himself. He knows he's going to die, and so do I. I don't want him to die unhappy. Once he's on that raft, headed for shore, his mind will be at ease, no matter what happens."
There wasn't anything I could say to that. Neal, when I'd first encountered him in Greenwich, was a fine boythe sort of boy anyone would be proud to have as a son or a brother; but the things that had happened to him in
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five months had changed him from a boy into a mana man who would be a credit to any society, to any country, no matter along what lines his life might be cast.
Swede was right about the wind. At noon it moved in faintly, a little east of south, and the captain gave the word to drag the raft to the spot Swede had chosen. The dragging