Boon Island - Kenneth Roberts [137]
Around me men spoke quietly and I heard themheard small sounds: the sighing of the breeze in the rigging: the screaking of the boom against the mast: the faint rustle of the seas along the hull. The world, after an eternity, was blessedly silent once more. Gone forever, thank God, was the deafening tumult of breakers, bellowing and roaring like furious beasts determined to destroy our minds as well as our bodies.
The brigantine and the two schooners hove to and waited for the pink to come within hailing distance: then cruised along on either side and spoke us.
"Get 'em all?" they shouted. "Anything we can do?"
Long used his speaking trumpet. "We got 'em all. Ten of 'em. If you beat us in, see there's canoes at Pepperrell's Wharf in Portsmouth. Take word to Dr. Packer. Get barbers. Find Nason and see what he's arranged."
The skippers of the three vessels nodded vigorously: held their hands clasped high in air and shook them.
Captain Long resumed his shouting. "Plenty of warm water! They're lousy, all of 'em! Plenty of bandages! All kinds of ointments!"
One of the skippers, perched in the ratlins, bawled, "How many days on the island?"
"Twenty-four," Captain Long shouted.
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The skipper slid down from the ratlins, and I could see the crews talking and gesticulating. I knew they didn't believe it.
The three vessels sheered away from the pink and drew ahead, as if racing for Portsmouth.
A sailor brought me a tot of rum and a slice of bread. "Captain's orders," he said. The rum burned my gullet and went heatedly around in my stomach. My first bite of bread had a flat taste, but the second was better: the last better still.
The same sailor came back with a cup of gruel and stood before me while I drank it. Then he quickly took the mug from me and moved to a distance. "I'll stand here so you won't fall overboard," he said.
I didn't know what he meant until the pink skittered on the top of a wave, then sank sideways down it. On that my ears roared, my insides were contorted, and everything in me churned up and out. I hung over the pink's bulwarks while the sailor held my knees. This, I thought, was death.
Dimly I heard the sailor say soothingly, "This'll clean you out. Everyone was sick after the gruel, even the captain."
Just at that moment I didn't care what had happened to the captain. I didn't even care what happened to me. I was seasick.
Pepperrell's Wharf was crowded when the pink slid alongside it at dusk. It was a mystery to me why so many hundreds had gathered on that wharf to see a few scarecrows, but in spite of the bitter January cold there were hundreds of them, women and men, too. Almost all had
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lanterns made of pierced tin. They were somehow different from any such throng that might collect in Greenwich. In Greenwich there would have been beggars among them and hangdog-looking folk, and deformed, dwarfed people, slyly seeking pockets to pick. Those of substance would have been smaller and would have seemed contemptuous. Almost certainly there would have been some who jeered, or laughed raucously at our hairiness and raggedness and queer oakum garments.
But those hundreds on Pepperrell's Wharf stood straight, had solidity, and all of them, without exception, were concerned about us. They were compassionate people, deeply interested in our welfare. When I was helped over the bulwarks and saw all those solicitous eyes, glittering in the light from their upheld lanterns, I couldn't help gulping to think that strangers should be so kind.
Nason came from the crowd to lower me into a canoe with Neal. "You're going to Captain Furber's," he said. "Captain Dean's going there, too. He's already gone." He put his hand on Neal's shoulder. "I'll see you tomorrow," he said. "We're all your friends. You needn't worry about a thing."
The canoeman