Boon Island - Kenneth Roberts [73]
Henry Dean, lying fully dressed on his bunk, climbed out heavily and pulled a knitted cap down over his ears.
They heard me out: then Captain Dean angrily pulled on his own hat, picked up the loggerhead from beside the cabin stove; and all of us went out again into the whirling snowflakes.
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Langman wasn't on the quarter-deck. Captain Dean spoke to the helmsman, "Where's the mate?"
Gray, the helmsman, said, "He went forward, Captain."
"He went to the hold," Swede said. "That's where he went: to the hold for water."
The door to the hold swung open and Langman, carrying a lantern in one hand and a water jug in the other, stepped out on the snowy deck.
"You're supposed to be on watch, Mr. Langman," Captain Dean said. "Where's your lookout? You have no business in the hold. What are you doing with that water jug? You know everyone on this ship is on a strict water ration!"
"That ain't so," Langman said. "You have all the water you want, and the crew gets half enough! They're sick of you and your ways. They say you're aiming to run this ship ashore, now, tonight! They say you've got to alter your course and take her straight out to sea if you want to prove you're not aiming to wreck her."
"Wreck her?" Captain Dean shouted. "In a northeaster? Are you crazy, Langman? Do you think I want to commit suicide? I took my bearings from Cape Porpoise! There's no place to wreck her unless I steer due west. Wreck her at night? Wreck her in a northeaster? Wreck her in a snowstorm? Talk sense, Langman! And get a lookout forward!"
"By God," Langman said, "you'll take her out to sea or we'll know the reason why!"
Captain Dean raised his head and seemed to sniff the air. "Swede!" he shouted. "Go forward! Keep your eyes peeled!"
Swede left us, scrambling, his right arm hanging low,
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ape-like, as if to keep himself from falling on the scum of slush amidships.
To Langman Captain Dean said, "I'll take no orders from you, Christopher Langman. You'll stop inciting this crew to rebellion! If you don't start acting like the mate of this ship, I'll take steps! What in God's name are you running without a lookout for?"
"How can a lookout keep his eyes open in gurry like this?" Langman demanded.
"He could hear, couldn't he?" the captain snapped.
Langman turned contemptuously away, and found himself squarely confronted by Henry Dean, who reached out and took the water jug, almost as though he took a child from its mother's arms. Langman resisted, shouting, "Mellen! White!"
On this Captain Dean stepped forward and brought the loggerhead down on Langman's skull. When Langman swayed but didn't fall, Captain Dean hit him again. Langman dropped to his knees, but, unfortunately for all of us, staggered to his feet again and reeled toward the cabin.
We heard Swede shouting something from the bow.
The captain ran forward, sliding precariously on the sloppy planks. Almost immediately he ran back past us to climb to the quarter-deck again and I was conscious of a hoarseness in the air about me, a sort of raucous wet humming that seemed to fill me with a deadening fright and turn my arms and legs to water.
"Starboard!" Captain Dean shouted to the helmsman. "Hard to starboard!"
The deck surged up beneath us. The whole ship lurched and seemed to cough, as a man, coughing, convulses himself.
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The bow fell off to larboard, and the vessel sickeningly rolled and rose up and up on a monstrous wave.
"Get your helm to starboard! Starboard!" Captain Dean screamed.
The raucous wet humming all around us deepened to a menacing all-pervasive rumble, overwhelming, stomach-shakingand the enormous comber on which the ship was riding seemed to hurl her forward.
She struck with a crash that threw me to the decka crash so loud that my brain crackled, and among the splinters was a faint hope that if any man lived within a mile of where we struck, he would be wakened by that dreadful sound and hurry to help