The Open Boat and Other Stories
light, and this time it was alongside the boat, and might almost have
been reached with an oar. The correspondent saw an enormous fin speed
like a shadow through the water, hurling the crystalline spray and
leaving the long glowing trail.
The correspondent looked over his shoulder at the captain. His face was
hidden, and he seemed to be asleep. He looked at the babes of the sea.
They certainly were asleep. So, being bereft of sympathy, he leaned a
little way to one side and swore softly into the sea.
But the thing did not then leave the vicinity of the boat. Ahead or
astern, on one side or the other, at intervals long or short, fled the
long sparkling streak, and there was to be heard the whiroo of the dark
fin. The speed and power of the thing was greatly to be admired. It cut
the water like a gigantic and keen projectile.
The presence of this biding thing did not affect the man with the same
horror that it would if he had been a picnicker. He simply looked at
the sea dully and swore in an undertone.
Nevertheless, it is true that he did not wish to be alone. He wished
one of his companions to awaken by chance and keep him company with it.
But the captain hung motionless over the water-jar, and the oiler and
the cook in the bottom of the boat were plunged in slumber.
VI
"If I am going to be drowned--if I am going to be drowned--if I am
going to be drowned, why, in the name of the seven mad gods who rule
the sea, was I allowed to come thus far and contemplate sand and trees?"
During this dismal night, it may be remarked that a man would conclude
that it was really the intention of the seven mad gods to drown him,
despite the abominable injustice of it. For it was certainly an
abominable injustice to drown a man who had worked so hard, so hard.
The man felt it would be a crime most unnatural. Other people had
drowned at sea since galleys swarmed with painted sails, but still----
When it occurs to a man that nature does not regard him as important,
and that she feels she would not maim the universe by disposing of
him, he at first wishes to throw bricks at the temple, and he hates
deeply the fact that there are no bricks and no temples. Any visible
expression of nature would surely be pelleted with his jeers.
Then, if there be no tangible thing to hoot he feels, perhaps, the
desire to confront a personification and indulge in pleas, bowed to one
knee, and with hands supplicant, saying: "Yes, but I love myself."
A high cold star on a winter's night is the word he feels that she says
to him. Thereafter he knows the pathos of his situation.
The men in the dingey had not discussed these matters, but each had, no
doubt, reflected upon them in silence and according to his mind. There
was seldom any expression upon their faces save the general one of
complete weariness. Speech was devoted to the business of the boat.
To chime the notes of his emotion, a verse mysteriously entered the
correspondent's head. He had even forgotten that he had forgotten this
verse, but it suddenly was in his mind.
"A soldier of the Legion lay dying in Algiers,
There was lack of woman's nursing, there was dearth of woman's tears;
But a comrade stood beside him, and he took that comrade's hand,
And he said: 'I shall never see my own, my native land.'"
In his childhood, the correspondent had been made acquainted with the
fact that a soldier of the Legion lay dying in Algiers, but he had
never regarded the fact as important. Myriads of his school-fellows had
informed him of the soldier's plight, but the dinning had naturally
ended by making him perfectly indifferent. He had never considered it
his affair that a soldier of the Legion lay dying in Algiers, nor had
it appeared to him as a matter for sorrow. It was less to him than the
breaking of a pencil's point.
Now, however, it quaintly came to him as a human, living thing. It was
no longer merely a picture of a few throes in the breast of a poet,
meanwhile drinking tea and warming his feet at the grate; it was an
actuality--stern, mournful, and fine.
The correspondent plainly saw the soldier. He lay on the sand with his
feet out straight and still. While his pale left hand was upon his
chest in an attempt to thwart the going of his life, the blood came
between his fingers. In the far Algerian distance, a city of low square
forms was set against a sky that was faint with the last sunset hues.
The correspondent, plying the oars and dreaming of the slow and slower
movements of the lips of the soldier, was moved by a profound and
perfectly impersonal comprehension. He was sorry for the soldier of the
Legion who lay dying in Algiers.
The thing which had followed the boat and waited, had evidently grown
bored at the delay. There was no longer to be heard the slash of the
cut-water, and there was no longer the flame of the long trail. The
light in the north still glimmered, but it was apparently no nearer to
the boat. Sometimes the boom of the surf rang in the correspondent's
ears, and he turned the craft seaward then and rowed harder. Southward,
some one had evidently built a watch-fire on the beach. It was too low
and too far to be seen, but it made a shimmering, roseate reflection
upon the bluff back of it, and this could be discerned from the boat.
The wind came stronger, and sometimes a wave suddenly raged out like
a mountain-cat, and there was to be seen the sheen and sparkle of a
broken crest.
The captain, in the bow, moved on his water-jar and sat erect. "Pretty
long night," he observed to the correspondent. He looked at the shore.
"Those life-saving people take their time."
"Did you see that shark playing around?"
"Yes, I saw him. He was a big fellow, all right."
"Wish I had known you were awake."
Later the correspondent spoke into the bottom of the boat.
"Billie!" There was a slow and gradual disentanglement. "Billie, will
you spell me?"
"Sure," said the oiler.
As soon as the correspondent touched the cold comfortable sea-water in
the bottom of the boat, and had huddled close to the cook's life-belt
he was deep in sleep, despite the fact that his teeth played all the
popular airs. This sleep was so good to him that it was but a moment
before he heard a voice call his name in a tone that demonstrated the
last stages of exhaustion. "Will you spell me?"
"Sure, Billie."
The light in the north had mysteriously vanished, but the
correspondent took his course from the wide-awake captain.
Later in the night they took the boat farther out to sea, and the
captain directed the cook to take one oar at the stern and keep the
boat facing the seas. He was to call out if he should hear the thunder
of the surf. This plan enabled the oiler and the correspondent to get
respite together. "We'll give those boys a chance to get into shape
again," said the captain. They curled down and, after a few preliminary
chatterings and trembles, slept once more the dead sleep. Neither
knew they had bequeathed to the cook the company of another shark, or
perhaps the same shark.
As the boat caroused on the waves, spray occasionally bumped over the
side and gave them a fresh soaking, but this had no power to break
their repose. The ominous slash of the wind and the water affected them
as it would have affected mummies.
"Boys," said the cook, with the notes of every reluctance in his voice,
"she's drifted in pretty close. I guess one of you had better take
her to sea again." The correspondent, aroused, heard the crash of the
toppled crests.
As he was rowing, the captain gave him some whisky-and-water, and this
steadied the chills out of him. "If I ever get ashore and anybody shows
me even a photograph of an oar----"
At last there was a short conversation.
"Billie.... Billie, will you spell me?"
"Sure," said the oiler.
VII
When the correspondent again opened his eyes, the sea and the sky
were each of the grey hue of the dawning. Later, carmine and gold
was painted upon the waters. The morning appeared finally, in its
splendour, with a sky of pure blue, and the sunlight flamed on the tips
of the waves.
On the distant dunes were set many little black cottages, and a tall
white windmill reared above them. No man, nor dog, nor bicycle appeared
on the beach. The cottages might have formed a deserted village.
The voyagers scanned the shore. A conference was held in the boat.
"Well," said the captain, "if no help is coming we might better try
a run through the surf right away. If we stay out here much longer
we will be too weak to do anything for ourselves at all." The others
silently acquiesced in this reasoning. The boat was headed for the
beach. The correspondent wondered if none ever ascended the tall
wind-tower, and if then they never looked seaward. This tower was a
giant, standing with its back to the plight of the ants. It represented
in a degree, to the correspondent, the serenity of nature amid the
struggles of the individual--nature in the wind, and nature in the
vision of men. She did not seem cruel to him then, nor beneficent, nor
treacherous, nor wise. But she was indifferent, flatly indifferent. It
is, perhaps, plausible that a man in this situation, impressed with
the unconcern of the universe, should see the innumerable flaws of his
life, and have them taste wickedly in his mind and wish for another
chance. A distinction between right and wrong seems absurdly clear to
him, then, in this new ignorance of the grave-edge, and he understands
that if he were given another opportunity he would mend his conduct and
his words, and be better and brighter during an introduction or at a
tea.
"Now, boys," said the captain, "she is going to swamp, sure. All we can
do is to work her in as far as possible, and then when she swamps, pile
out and scramble for the beach. Keep cool now, and don't jump until she
swamps sure."
The oiler took the oars. Over his shoulders he scanned the surf.
"Captain," he said, "I think I'd better bring her about, and keep her
head-on to the seas and back her in."
"All right, Billie," said the captain. "Back her in." The oiler swung
the boat then and, seated in the stern, the cook and the correspondent
were obliged to look over their shoulders to contemplate the lonely and
indifferent shore.
The monstrous in-shore rollers heaved the boat high until the men were
again enabled to see the white sheets of water scudding up the slanted
beach. "We won't get in very close," said the captain. Each time a man
could wrest his attention from the rollers, he turned his glance toward
the shore, and in the expression of the eyes during this contemplation
there was a singular quality. The correspondent, observing the others,
knew that they were not afraid, but the full meaning of their glances
was shrouded.
As for himself, he was too tired to grapple fundamentally with the
fact. He tried to coerce his mind into thinking of it, but the mind
was dominated at this time by the muscles, and the muscles said they
did not care. It merely occurred to him that if he should drown it
would be a shame.
There were no hurried words, no pallor, no plain agitation. The men
simply looked at the shore. "Now, remember to get well clear of the
boat when you jump," said the captain.
Seaward the crest of a roller suddenly fell with a thunderous crash,
and the long white comber came roaring down upon the boat.
"Steady now," said the captain. The men were silent. They turned their
eyes from the shore to the comber and waited. The boat slid up the
incline, leaped at the furious top, bounced over it, and swung down the
long back of the wave. Some water had been shipped and the cook bailed
it out.
But the next crest crashed also. The tumbling boiling flood of white