By Stephen Crane
I
NONE of them knew the color of the sky. Their eyes glanced level, and
were fastened upon the waves that swept toward them. These waves were of the
hue of slate, save for the tops, which were of foaming white, and all of the
men knew the colors of the sea. The horizon narrowed and widened, and dipped
and rose, and at all times its edge was jagged with waves that seemed thrust
up in points like rocks.
Many a man ought to have a bath-tub larger than the boat which here rode
upon the sea. These waves were most wrongfully and barbarously abrupt and
tall, and each froth-top was a problem in small boat navigation.
The cook squatted in the bottom and looked with both eyes at the six
inches of gunwale which separated him from the ocean. His sleeves were
rolled over his fat forearms, and the two flaps of his unbuttoned vest
dangled as he bent to bail out the boat. Often he said: "Gawd! That was a
narrow clip." As he remarked it he invariably gazed eastward over the broken
sea.
The oiler, steering with one of the two oars in the boat, sometimes
raised himself suddenly to keep clear of water that swirled in over the
stern. It was a thin little oar and it seemed often ready to snap.
The correspondent, pulling at the other oar, watched the waves and
wondered why he was there.
The injured captain, lying in the bow, was at this time buried in that
profound dejection and indifference which comes, temporarily at least, to
even the bravest and most enduring when, willy nilly, the firm fails, the
army loses, the ship goes down. The mind of the master of a vessel is rooted
deep in the timbers of her, though he command for a day or a decade, and
this captain had on him the stern impression of a scene in the grays of dawn
of seven turned faces, and later a stump of a top-mast with a white ball on
it that slashed to and fro at the waves, went low and lower, and down.
Thereafter there was something strange in his voice. Although steady, it was
deep with mourning, and of a quality beyond oration or tears.
"Keep'er a little more south, Billie," said he.
"'A little more south,' sir," said the oiler in the stern.
A seat in this boat was not unlike a seat upon a bucking broncho, and, by
the same token, a broncho is not much smaller. The craft pranced and reared,
and plunged like an animal. As each wave came, and she rose for it, she
seemed like a horse making at a fence outrageously high. The manner of her
scramble over these walls of water is a mystic thing, and, moreover, at the
top of them were ordinarily these problems in white water, the foam racing
down from the summit of each wave, requiring a new leap, and a leap from the
air. Then, after scornfully bumping a crest, she would slide, and race, and
splash down a long incline and arrive bobbing and nodding in front of the
next menace.
A singular disadvantage of the sea lies in the fact that after
successfully surmounting one wave you discover that there is another behind
it just as important and just as nervously anxious to do something effective
in the way of swamping boats. In a ten-foot dingey one can get an idea of
the resources of the sea in the line of waves that is not probable to the
average experience, which is never at sea in a dingey. As each slaty wall of
water approached, it shut all else from the view of the men in the boat, and
it was not difficult to imagine that this particular wavewas the final outburst of the ocean, the last effort of the grim water.
There was a terrible grace in the move of the waves, and they came in
silence, save for the snarling of the crests.
In the wan light, the faces of the men must have been gray. Their eyes
must have glinted in strange ways as they gazed steadily astern. Viewed from
a balcony, the whole thing would doubtlessly have been weirdly picturesque.
But the men in the boat had no time to see it, and if they had had leisure
there were other things to occupy their minds. The sun swung steadily up the
sky, and they knew it was broad day because the color of the sea changed
from slate to emerald-green, streaked with amber lights, and the foam was
like tumbling snow. The process of the breaking day was unknown to them.
They were aware only of this effect upon the color of the waves that rolled
toward them.
In disjointed sentences the cook and the correspondent argued as to the
difference between a life-saving station and a house of refuge. The cook had
said: "There's a house of refuge just north of the Mosquito Inlet Light, and
as soon as they see us, they'll come off in their boat and pick us up."
"As soon as who see us?" said the correspondent.
"The crew," said the cook.
"Houses of refuge don't have crews," said the correspondent. "As I
understand them, they are only places where clothes and grub are stored for
the benefit of shipwrecked people. They don't carry crews."
"Oh, yes, they do,