Boon Island - Kenneth Roberts [96]
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a boulder so it couldn't blow. On the canvas we laid three planks side by side, fastened together, but fastened in a way that would have sickened a savage from the heart of Africa.
The ends of those planks were jagged. We had no way of rounding them off except by smashing them with a hammer, since the saw was too precious to waste on anything trivial; so all that day was spent in getting ready to build rather than in building, andseemingly most important of allin endless discussions as to who should go in the boat if ever it was finished.
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December 17th, Sunday
Even Saver and Graystock, those lumps of men who wouldn't pick oakum unless they felt like it, and Chips Bullock, who was willing to work but couldn't, wanted to be in that boat when she was launched, if she ever was launched.
Probably this was because today, our first Sunday, the captain discovered, on the snow-covered fields of the mainland, moving specks that must have been peoplechurchgoers, in all likelihood.
I think by that time we were all of us half demented, for we shouted and waved our arms, hoping to catch the attention of those far-off specksand surely there wasn't a one of us who didn't know that we, all brown and gray, with grizzled beards and wrappings of oakum, could be no more apparent to those on shore than a seal would have been.
But the sight of those moving specks upon that distant slope made each of us conscious of how near we were to bread and meat, to warmth and drink and other people, to houses and soft beds and dry clothes, to salves for our
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festering feet and the sores on our knees and hands; so even before the floor of the boat was completed, all but a few were urging that they be allowed to go ashore in her.
Two exceptions were Swede and Neal. Swede didn't say it openly, but he was determined Neal must be saved, if anyone was. And equally apparent was Neal's determination not to leave his father.
I sympathized with Swede.
If I had the say as to who should go in the boat, I'd have picked Captain Dean first and Neal second: the captain because he was strongest and would have influence on shore: Neal because he was youngest and with the greatest possibilities. But I never would have picked Swede. His feet were so crippled that I considered him uselesswhich eventually taught me never to underrate a determined man, no matter how helpless he may seem.
Even poor Chips Bullock argued his case to the captain in a faintly raucous voice, pleading that without his hammer and his nails and spikes, the boat would have been impossible.
The captain said, ''Yes, Chips. We'll do the best we can."
Graystock and Saver, useless as they were, united in saying they deserved a place in the boat because of their physical condition, which was bad.
Strangest of all the arguments was that of Harry Hallion, who said he thought he ought to go because he spoke Indian.
"Indian?" Captain Dean asked. "What kind of Indian?"
"Nova Scotia Indian," Hallion said. "I lived with an Indian woman all one winter."
"Nova Scotia Indians are Micmacs," Captain Dean pro-
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tested. "The Indians around here are a different breed. In the winter they live in the woodsand that's one place we're not going when we get ashore." He never said "if we get ashore." He always said ''when we get ashore."
Becoming suddenly angry at all this pretense, the captain ordered all those not working on the boat to return to the tent and pick more oakummore oakummore oakum.
"There'll be nobody go in this boat," he shouted, "unless we can plug every hole with oakum. Right now she looks as though she'd have more holes in her than she'll have wood."
Repeatedly, that day, we stopped working on the boat and went to the tent to help in the picking of oakumnot only because of the intense cold, but to consult with Chips Bullock as to the best way to erect a stanchion at each corner of the floor boards.