Boon Island - Kenneth Roberts [84]
And how could my tutors and professors at Oxford have pretended to find truth and beauty in the adventures of Ulysses? Ulysses, confronted by such tribulations as those that surrounded us, couldn't have helped himselfcould only have turned to and been succored by a god or a goddess in the shape of somebody or otherperhaps by Minerva in the form of an eagle. If he had been in our dire straits, ever-dependable Mercury would have built for him a stout ship from newly cut lumberyes, and seasoned it for him, too. Mercury would even have done it for him on Boon Island, where no tree grew!
In a vision Minerva would have told him how to discover a great store of cheese. In the depths of his distress, Minerva would have appeared to comfort and encourage
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himto restore to him the beauty of his youth; Jupiter would have thundered from heaven, ordering the seas to subside!
But the unhappy truth was that nothing like the Odyssey has ever been or ever will be. The troubles of Ulysses were brought upon him by his own stupidity and not, as Homer would have us believe, by the vindictiveness of Poseidon, that green-whiskered ruler of the vasty deep. The dreadful facts we faced on Boon Island taught me that Ulysses was a dilatory and philandering old fool; and if he had been with us on our rock, he'd have been exactly in our situationdespairing, helpless, hopeless, and perpetually on the verge of death.
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December 13th, Wednesday
I hoped that when the northeaster blew itself out, the sea would grow calm, but it didn't. When the wind swung, it backed into the northwest and west, meaning that bad weather had only temporarily abated. We were free of driving snow and rain, but breakers still roared deafeningly on the north and west. They pounded less on the south and east, but still they pounded, throwing off manes of white foam. The wind seemed colder than on the night we were wrecked.
With the break of day I heard Captain Dean calling Neal to come outside. I went out, too, to find the captain staring off to the northwest.
''Neal," the captain said, "see if you can remember those maps you drew in the little book."
Neal said he remembered.
"Can you recall the chief places you lettered on the maps, starting with Cape Porpoise?" the captain asked.
"Cape Porpoise," Neal said, "Cape Arundel, Bald Head Cliff, Cape Neddick"
"That's it," the captain cried. "Bald Head Cliff! That's
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where the waves shoot up, yonder, and this is Boon Island! The last time I sailed east from Portsmouth, I sailed between Boon Island and Cape Neddick! Boon Island was to starboard and Bald Head Cliff to larboard!"
As the eastern sky grew brighter we could see the high dark red rock face of Bald Head Cliff. Spouts of spray rose high against it.
If we'd gone ashore on Bald Head Cliff in a northeaster, instead of on Boon Island, the ship and every last one of us would have been battered to a pulp in a minute's time.
Captain Dean, cheered by the sight of the mainland, lay flat to crawl beneath the shelter and shout the good news to those within.
"Listen," he said. "I know where we are! We're on Boon Island! Just south of us are the Isles of Shoals, where the Pepperrells and other Portsmouth people have fish stages. All winter there's fishing off the Isles of Shoals. There'll be fishing shallops passing us from every directionPortsmouth, Kittery, York. If we set up something they can see, they'll find us. They'll take us off. But unless all of you get out and go to work, we won't be able to set up anything. Your blood won't circulate. You'll die. You've got to come out and drag cordage and junk."
Nobody said a word.
"Another thing," Captain