Boon Island - Kenneth Roberts [99]
I followed the direction of his gaze, and my eyes caught what his had caughta short stick, a trifle bent, standing up straight from those shelving ledges.
There was something about the curve of that stick that
Page 242
filled me with an almost insupportable excitement. I knew it couldn't be what it vaguely resembled! It couldn't be! Such things happen only in the Odyssey, and through the direct intervention of Minerva.
The surf swirled around the stick as we hurried toward it as rapidly as our bandaged and aching feet would let us.
Neal crawled out on the seaweed. I held his arm while he reached for the stick.
It was exactly what it had looked like the moment we saw it. It was an axe helve, and on the end of it, yellowed with salt-water rust, was the axe head, with the hone-marks still showing on the still sharp blade!
It's amazing how small a thing can make such a difference to so many people! Without that axe we were almost helpless, though I think we were never wholly hopeless.
With the axe, our spirits rose, our work no longer stood like an impenetrable wall before us.
We shouted the news of the axe to Captain Dean and Langman: showed it to those in the tent, to raise their spirits. They passed it from hand to hand.
"That's mine," Chips said. "The nails are mine, too. I ought to be allowed to go in the boat."
Nobody answered him. He was the only one who didn't know how sick he was.
"We'll need that oakum tomorrow," I reminded them. "If we have the right wind but shouldn't have enough oakum, we wouldn't dare to put her in the water."
Everyone, even Saver and Graystock, struggled to soften pieces of cordage, to separate the strands, to pick the hemp apart.
We went back to the oars.
Page 243
With Neal holding each board upright, wedged between rocks, the axe chipped smooth slivers from the corners of the planks. The portions to be gripped by the hands of the rowers became round. Neal and I exchanged places at intervals, for the sake of warmth; but I think the thing that kept us warmest was the feeling of miraculous accomplishment.
Page 244
December 20th, Wednesday
The boat was shaped like a punt, with square ends and square sides, and we spent all day putting the final touches on herif anything about that boat could be called final. She was a marvel of incompleteness.
We had no way of judging how high she'd ride in the water when seven men were in her; nor was there any way of knowing how our caulking would hold.
All day long we drove oakum between the stern board and the sides: the bow boards and the sides.
The floor boards had been laid on canvas; and when they had been caulked as well as we could do it, the canvas was drawn up around the sides and ends like a shroud.
We stretched canvas over her bow and stern, binding the canvas with cordage. ''It might be," Captain Dean said, "that if waves start slapping us, that canvas may help to keep out some of the spray."
Her height was a little increased by running a long strip of canvas around her, fastened to the stanchions; but it was too low. It had to be, so that the men who knelt in the boat could use the oars as paddles.
Page 245
Remembering now how that boat looked, I can't believe that so many of us were eager to trust ourselves to her. Today I wouldn't trust such a travesty of a craft to get me across the Isis at Oxford, but it's easy to forget what a man will do when he's faced on the one hand with certain death, and on the other hand with a chance to live.
The easiest thing to say is that we were insane because of the things we'd endured. Surely I was insane, because I was eager to go. I was even sorry for Swede and Chips, who weren't strong enough to do so, and for all the others who couldn't for lack of space.
Yet we weren't wholly demented, because we made half a dozen bailing scoopsa simple matter now that we had the