Men Against the Sea by Charles & Hall James Norman Nordhoff

Author:Charles & Hall, James Norman Nordhoff [Charles & Hall, James Norman Nordhoff]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pocket Books
Published: 1969-05-15T07:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER VIII

During the following night the severity of the weather relaxed; at dawn the sea was so calm that for the first time in fifteen days we found it unnecessary to bail. I had managed to sleep for two or three hours in a miserably cramped position. When I awoke, I lay without moving for some time, gazing in a kind of stupor at what I could see of the others in the boat.

Nelson lay beside me. His eyes were half opened, and with his parted lips, looking blue in the morning light, his hollow cheeks and sunken temples, I thought for a moment, until aware of some slight sign of breathing, that he must have died during the night. Captain Bligh sat in the stern, beside Elphinstone, who held the tiller. Although reduced, like the rest of us, to skin and bone, and clad, like ourselves, in sodden rags, there was nothing grotesque in his appearance. Wear what he might, he was still a noble figure, and suffering but added to the dignity and firmness of his bearing.

"Come up here in the sun, Mr. Ledward," he said. "It will make a new man of you."

I struggled to stand, but was unable to rise. Mr. Bligh helped me to the seat beside him. He made a sign to Hayward and Tinkler to help Nelson up. The botanist gave me a ghastly smile, designed to be cheerful.

"I feel better already," he remarked in a weak voice.

The captain now addressed all hands. "Luck's with us," he said; "we've left the bad weather behind. Off with your cloathes, before the sun gets too high, and give them a drying while you've the chance. The sun on our bare hides will be as good as a glass of grog...Mr. Samuel, issue a teaspoonful of rum all round!" He glanced about at the people appraisingly, and then added: "We'll celebrate the good weather, lads! An ounce of pork with our bread and water!"

Our cloathing, reduced to rags by soaking in rain and wringing out in sea water, was hung along the gunwales to dry, and we now presented a strange and pitiful spectacle. Our skins, from long soaking in the rain, looked dead white, like the bellies of fish; some of the men were so reduced that I thought it a wonder they were able to stand. Nothing was more remarkable than their cheerfulness in bearing their afflictions. The warm sun, not yet high enough to scorch us, was exceedingly grateful, and our breakfast, enriched by a bit of pork, was a cheerful meal.

The morning was as beautiful as any I have known at sea. The breeze, at E.N.E., ruffled the sea to that shade of dark blue only to be seen between the tropics, and filled our sails bravely, without being boisterous enough to shower us with spray. The sky was clear save for the small, tufted, fairweather clouds on the verge of the horizon.

Mr. Fryer reached over the side and brought up a bit of coconut husk, on which the first green beginnings of marine growth appeared.

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