Boon Island - Kenneth Roberts [113]
The others couldn't lift, they said, but they had crawled from the tent to watch, all but poor Chips Bullock.
Between every few lifts we crawled forward to move rocks from our path, and came back to lift again, sliding the raft forward three inches, five inches. The hardest part was finding footholds sufficiently secure to make lifting possible.
At the water's edge the captain stepped back from the raft.
"Put her in," Swede shouted. "She's headed right for shore!"
"Yes, put her in," George White said. "I'm going with him. With this breeze I think we can make it."
Langman, I thought, as well as could be seen on a face so covered with whiskers, had a smug look. If one of his own men hadn't been going with Swede, I was sure he would have protested bitterly. He never would have gone himself, and he would have done everything possible to prevent Swede from going alone.
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"If you're determined to go," the captain said, "I won't try to stop you, now that you've gone this far"
"Push her in," Swede said.
"But I want to urge you to wait one more day, or two days."
"What for?" Swede demanded. "Get her in the water!"
There were murmurs from the oakum-draped figures sprawled on the rocks around us, their limbs at odd angles, like those of dead men.
The captain fumbled in his clothes and with difficulty produced coins, which he gave to Swede. "These are all I saved," he told Swede. "They may help you, one way or another. And there's just one thing, Swede. When you get to shore, have somebody light a fire on the beach. Have 'em light two fires. Have 'em do that before they do anything else."
"Two fires," Swede said. He crawled aboard the raft and swept us with a glance that made my heart contract. "I know you wish us well," he said. "I wish all of you well." He steadied himself by grasping the spar on either side, and we ran the raft into the water. George White climbed over the stern, and we pushed as hard as we could.
The raft moved heavily between two ledge-fingers, and her hammock-sail flapped. She almost stopped, settled down as a wave receded, then picked up way again. She moved out until she was parallel with the tips of the ledgefingers: then sluggishly swung broadside to the distant coast line. A slow surge moved her forward. The bow rose a little. The surge slid back and left the side of the raft caught on an unseen ledge.
White struggled with the lashings of his oar. The free side of the raft slipped under water. The surge returned
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and the raft tilted sharply. Then another surge moved down from the north side of the island, pressed against the submerged side, and the raft rolled over. A crying rose around us like the squalling of seagulls above a school of fish.
The raft had spilled in deep water. I found myself on a ledge-finger near the wallowing contraption. Swede came to the surface, gasping, and swam easily to shore, holding a rope-end in his hand. Neal and Langman dragged him up on the seaweed.
I saw the captain, at the end of another rock finger, reaching and clutching for a piece of woodWhite's rude oar. He caught it and pulled. White's head emerged from the water. I thought he was dead. The captain dragged him up on the ledge, hoisted him to his feet and held him by the waist, doubled over. I saw he couldn't be dead, because he still clung to the oar.
Swede, clutching his rope-end, seemed able to say nothing but "Help me! Help me!" in a voice that quavered so the words were hardly distinguishable.
Incapable of using his feet, he straddled a seaweed-covered boulder, pulling at the rope-end until others came to help.
Between us we got the overturned raft into the cove and ashore at the