Boon Island - Kenneth Roberts [93]
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He came out to where we were rolling boulders against the bottom of the canvas. "The men inside," he told Captain Dean, "want this rawhide divided. They think they can eat it. I think it might hurt 'em instead of help 'em."
The captain felt it with speculative fingers. "No," he said slowly. "It wouldn't hurt 'em. Food is what you think it is. A lot of critters live on things that wouldn't be much help to other critters. So do a lot of men. Probably you wouldn't care much about eating a mouse, but Chinese do and think they're nice. They eat 'em, and like 'em. You divide this rawhide into thirteen pieces. Give one piece to each man, and make him chop his own into little pieces, just as fine as he can mince 'em."
Perhaps that rawhide did give everyone a little strength, for after each had eaten his share, those in the tent went back to picking oakum. When night came we not only had shelter over us, but we had a layer of oakum beneath usa thin one, to be sure, but one that wasn't wet. It was damp, yes; but it wasn't wet, and up to now we had been wet every nightwet, and cold with a cold that beggars description. Those who live beneath roofs, or in dry caves, with dry clothes next to their skins, can't imagine what it's like to exist surrounded by a tumult of breakers, in wet clothes, on sharp wet rocks, and in cold so intense that every boulder in sight is covered with a thick armor of ice.
But we had a little more room than we'd heretofore had, though we still lay tight against each other, belly to buttocks so to take advantage of the slight warmth that each of us, by the grace of God, contrived to hold within himself.
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December 16th, Saturday
The world, I've found, is full of people who cannot realize that everything is hard workeverything. People turn to sailing, or to fishing, or to acting, or to painting, or to play writingto any one of the thousand different occupationswith some sort of a vague idea that it's easy work. Sometimes work can be enthralling if it's done as an avocation instead of out of dire necessity, but it's hard work just the same.
So I question that the building of our boat on Boon Island was harder work than writing a play, or sheepherding, or chopping wood; but I suspect that no work has ever been done under such adverse circumstances.
The place we selected to build the boat was on the south side of the island, where ledge-fingers ran slopingly out toward the south. The ledges were less abrupt there than on the other three sides, and the surf less violent.
It was on the south side, always, that the seals thrust their bullet heads from the water to watch us, and it was aggravating to see twenty or thirty of those round heads
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examining us from popeyes, and puffing out their whiskers at us, as if amazed by our presence on their island.
Sometimes, surprisingly, even though the wind blew from the north, a huge swell would roll in toward that south side and there'd be the watery shadows of ten or more seals floating in it, seemingly higher than we.
Just before the wave broke, the seals would rise shoulder-high for a clearer look at us, then slip away, down the far side, while the wave curled over with a roar. I couldn't imagine Boon Island without breakers hurrying toward its shores from every direction, as if to a boisterous and senseless rendezvous.
The day had started inauspiciously because Langman, having determined that the day was Sunday instead of Saturday, had whispered sulkily with Mellen and White, during the night, and come to the conclusion that to work on Sunday was wrong. All of us, he told the captain, should observe Sunday with him and Mellen and White. I knew, as well as I knew my own name, that he was just being contrary.
Captain Dean shook his head wearily. "Mr. Langman," he said, "I have no intention of attempting to speak for God, but you evidently have a personal God that differs in some respects from mine. My God accepts those who worship Him, regardless of