Boon Island - Kenneth Roberts [75]
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"Don't pray for help!" the captain told him. "Pray for the strength to help yourself! Strength!"
The whole ship sagged sickeningly to one side: reeled even more sickeningly to the other: a sea that must have been enormous struck her side with such force that my eardrums felt thrust against my throbbing brain. A splitting sound came from beneath us, and the cabin floor fluttered.
"Oh, God!" Captain Dean said, "give each man the strength to stand upon his feet and stretch out a helping hand to every other man. Say it, every last one of you, and mean it! God give me strength! Say it, Langman."
"God give me strength," Langman said.
"Again!" Captain Dean shouted. "Everyone! God give me strength!"
The men's voices quavered, thin and bird-like through the sounds of the smashing seas.
The whole after part of the ship straightened a little, then seemed to slide downhill.
"Get on deck," Captain Dean cried. "Get up and get out before she breaks in two or slides off." He reached out and pulled Chips to his feet. ''Use your axe! Swede! Miles! Go with him! Cut the weather shrouds and ratlins! If the masts fall toward the land, we may have a chance! If they don't fall, chop the foremast!" He flung Chips toward the companionway. Swede and I followed him.
Behind us Captain Dean stormed among the men, kicking them and hauling them to their feet.
The task of cutting those shrouds and ratlinsof keeping a foothold on that steep and slippery deckwas difficult beyond belief. We couldn't trust ourselves on the chains because of the smashing of the waves against the
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side. For a time Chips insisted he could stand on the bulwarks and swing his axe. We hoisted him up to let him thrust a foot through the ratlins. He hooked his other leg around a stay, but when he swung his axe, one of those roaring towering breakers foamed against him and blinded us. When the foam subsided, Chips was in the scuppers once more, but still clinging to his axe.
We tried holding Chips pinned against the bulwarks with our shoulders; but the unending slash of icy foam and the driving snow numbed me: must have numbed Chips, too, for he couldn't seem to swing the axe.
"Give me that axe," Swede shouted. "We've got to get ashore somehow! Stand under me. When I fall, catch me if you can."
He pushed the axe handle inside his breeches, put an arm around Neal's shoulders, bellowed, "We'll be all right"; then went up the inside of the ratlins like a big spider. We lost him at once in the snow and the flying spray, but felt the jarring of his axe against the riggingand then, suddenly, he came sprawling down among us. Almost in the same moment the foremast went over the side with a splintering crash. Then the mainmast went, and the ship rolled on her side to surge soggily as if agonized by the pounding of those roaring breakers.
"Look for the axe!" Swede said. "I threw it to leeward when I fell!"
"To hell with the axe," Chips said. "Get ashore! Wherever people live we can find another axe."
I agreed with him. We could have hunted forever for that axe or for Chips's workbag in the darkness and on that glacial deck.
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"I'll go first," Swede said. "I want Neal close behind me. I want Miles behind Neal."
He left us, and we felt rather than saw him inching along the mast. We crawled out after him. Ratlins and shrouds were tangled around it. The foretop was like a fence to be climbed, but we climbed it.
The tip of the mast rested against something solid. That something was seaweed, and beneath the seaweed were rockssolid, immovable rocks.
We were safe, I thought, secure from those bellowing breakers; and even as I write the words "safe" and "secure," I feel a sort of shame for those who, like myself, could let themselves think that there is ever any such thing as safety and security.
The seaweed was so slippery that if a person upon it was unable to see where to step, he staggered,