Boon Island - Kenneth Roberts [77]
Page 180
a matter of ten paces because of the wailing of the north-easter and the terrifying unending noise of that savage ocean.
There was a clatter and a cry of pain from the dark hollow. I heard Captain Dean's voice. "I've got Cooky Sipper! How many's here?"
"Nine," Langman said. "Eleven with you and Cooky." Swede's voice came to us throbbingly, half strangled by the snow and the wind. "I'm twelve. I've lost my bearings! Where's the boy?"
"Thank God," the captain said. "The boy's back there a rod and a half. He said Whitworth told him to stay. He wouldn't come along with me."
I shouted to Swede that I'd get him, and went lurching off into the teeth of the storm. The going seemed easier when I had a known goal. Maybe I'd learned how to handle myself more skillfully on those ice-covered rocks and ledges.
As I went I called Neal's name, and when at length I heard him answer, I had the first moment of mental peace I'd had since Captain Dean brought down the loggerhead on Christopher Langman's skull.
When I reached him he sank to his knees and huddled down into himself. "I haven't moved," he said. I could hardly understand his words, his voice was so shaken with cold. They came from him in shuddering gasps, most distressing.
"The captain found Cooky," he said. "The captain lost his coat. He cut his hands on the rocks. Where's my father?"
"He'll be all right," I said. I hoped to God I was telling
Page 181
the truth. "Everybody's safe in a hole in the rocks. We'll go there now."
"Did anybody find a house?" Neal asked. Shudderingly he added, "Place to get warm?"
I didn't have the heart to answer. "You'll have to crawl, Neal," I said. "You'll fall if you don't. The rocks are icy. If you're thirsty you can eat the ice."
He still held Chips's hammer. I took it from him and with it pounded ice from a boulder. It came off in curved slabs about an inch thick. We bit into them as into slices of solid frosted bread. I could hear Neal crunch the ice. He would stop, overcome by a spasm of shivering: then go on crunching again.
When we got to the depression where Langman, Captain Dean and the other ten were huddled, I knocked more ice from a boulder and brought the slabs into the depression.
When I told them that the ice was nearly fresh, Langman protested that it couldn't be fresh: that it was nothing but frozen salt water and that those who ate it would lose their reason.
"How much have you eaten?" I asked.
"I haven't eaten any," Langman said. "I don't have to! It stands to reason it's got to be salt."
"I've eaten it," I said. "So has Neal. It's not salt. Didn't you hear me say it's freshalmost?"
"Yes, I heard you," Langman said. "I heard another thing, too: heard Captain Dean say he didn't aim to run the ship ashore. Look at us now!"
Unseen hands fumbled at me and relieved me of my load of ice. Sounds of crunching came from all around.
Page 182
"Has anybody got anything I can put on my head?" Captain Dean asked. "When I came to get off, the ship had slipped. To get ashore I laid off my coat and wig and had to jump. I can't see my hands, but I think I tore off some fingernails on the rock."
Nobody answered.
Swede called out, "Send Neal over here to me."
"I'll come too," I said.
The men were huddled together in an irregular oval between two outcroppings of ledge. The outcroppings were perhaps three feet highno shelter at all until one rose to his feet and got the full force of the wind, snow and spray in his face.
No one stood up except from necessity, as when someone moved a boulder from beneath him and hoisted it to the top of the ledge.
To remove a boulder seemed to create more boulders. Underneath them was a hodgepodge of wet grit compounded of a million dead seashells.
"What did you find, Swede?" I asked.
"Same as Chips," Swede said. "Nothing. Just rocks and ledge. Then more seaweed."
"I think this is an island," Chips said. "When we get the spring tide"