Billy Topsail, M.D.

Bill o' Burnt Bay was wrong. It came on to blow. The wind jumped to the northwest with a nasty notion of misbehaviour. It was all in a moment. A gust of wind, cold as death, went swirling past. They chilled to the bones in it. And then a bitter blast of weather came sweeping down. The floe began to pack and drive. Bill o' Burnt Bay gathered and numbered his watch. And then they waited for the ship. No sign. And the day turned thick. Dusk fell before its time. It was not yet midway of the afternoon. And the wind began to buffet and bite. It began to snow, too. And it was a frosty cloud of snow. It blinded – it stifled. It was flung out of the black northwest like flour from a shaken sack.

The men were afraid. They knew that weather. It was a blizzard. There was a night of mortal peril in it. There might be a night and a day – a day and two nights. And they knew what would happen to them if Cap'n Saul failed to find them before the pack nipped him and the night shut down. It had happened before to lost crews. It would happen again. Men gone stark mad in the wind – the floe strewn with drifted corpses. They had heard tales. And now they had visions. Dead men going into port – ship's flag at half-mast, and dead men going into port, frozen stiff and blue, and piled forward like cord-wood.

"I'll make a song about this," said Toby Farr.

"A song!" Archie Armstrong exclaimed.

"'Tis about the gray wraiths o' dead men that squirm in the night."

"I'd not do it!" Jonathan protested.

"They drift like snow in the black wind," said Toby.

"Ah, no!" said Jonathan. "I'd make no songs the night about dead men an' wraiths."

"Ay, but I'm well started – "

"No, lad!"

"I've a bit about cold fingers an' the damp touch – "

"I'd not brood upon that."

"An it please you, sir – "

"No."

"Ah, well," Toby agreed, "I'll wait 'til I'm cozy an' warm aboard ship."

"That's better," said Archie.

Billy Topsail shuddered. Toby's imagination – ghosts and dead men – had frightened him.

"It is!" he declared.

CHAPTER XXXVIII

In Which the Wind Blows a Tempest, Our Heroes are Lost on the Floe, Jonathan Farr is Encased in Snow and Frozen Spindrift, Toby Strangely Disappears, and an Heroic Fight for Life is Begun, Wrapped in Bitter Dark

It is well known on this coast, from Cape Race to Norman and the Labrador harbours, what happened to Cap'n Saul that night. It was vast, flat, heavy ice, thick labour for the ship, at best – square miles of pans and fields. In the push of the northwest gale, blowing down, all at once, with vigour and fury, from a new quarter, the big pans shifted and revolved. The movement was like that of a waltz – slow dancers, revolving in a waltz. And then the floe closed. And what was a clear course in the morning was packed ice before dusk.

When the day began to foul, Cap'n Saul snatched up the First Watch, where he was standing by, and came driving down after Bill o' Burnt Bay's watch. It was too late. The ice caught him. And there was no shaking free. The men on the floe glimpsed the ship – the bulk of the ship and a cloud of smoke; but Cap'n Saul caught no glimpse of them – a huddle of poor men wrapped in snow and dusk.

A blast of the gale canted the Rough and Tumble until her bare yards touched the floe and Cap'n Saul had a hard time to save her alive from the gale. And that was the measure of the wind. It blew a tempest. Rescue? No rescue. The men knew that. A rescue would walk blind – stray and blow away like leaves. They must wait for clear weather and dawn.

There had been Newfoundlanders in the same hard case before. The men knew what to do.

"Keep movin'!"

"No sleep!"

"Stick t'gether!"

"Nobody lie down!"

"Fetch me a buffet, some o' you men, an I gets sleepy."

"I gives any man leave t' beat me."

"Where's Tom Land?"

"Here I is!"

"I say, Tom – Long George gives any man leave t' beat un black an' blue!"

And a laugh at that.

"Mind the blow-holes!"

"An a man gets wet, he'll freeze solid."

"No sleep!"

"Keep movin'!"

They kept moving to keep warm. And even they larked. Tag, whilst they could see to chase – and a sad leap-frog. And they wrestled and scuffled until it was black dark and the heart went out of them all. And then they wandered, with no lee to shelter them – a hundred and seventy-three men, stamping and stumbling in the wind, clinging to life, hour after hour, and waiting for the dawn, bitten by frost and near stifled by snow. It was gnawing cold. Twelve below – it was afterwards said. And that's bitter weather. It bit through to the bones and heart. And what they wore to withstand it – no great-coats, to hamper the kill, but only jackets and caps and mitts.

The floe was flat and bare to the gale. Nobody knows the pitch of the wind. It was a full tempest. That much is known. And it stung and cut and strove to wrest them from their feet and whisk them away. And there they were – in the grip of the wind, stripped to the strength they had, like lost beasts, and helpless to fend any more. Billy Topsail saw young Simeon Tutt, of Whoopin' Harbour, trip and stagger and fall at his feet; and before Billy could lay hands on him to save him, the wind blew him away, like a leaf, and he was never seen again, but driven into a lake of water in the dark, it was thought, and there perished.

By and by Archie and Billy stumbled on old Jonathan Farr of Jolly Harbour. It was long past midnight then. And they saw no lad with him. Where was Toby?

"That you, Jonathan?" said Archie.

"'Tis I, Archie."

"You living yet?"

"No choice. I got t' live."

"Where's Toby?" said Billy.

"The lad's – "

It was hard to hear. The old man's words jumped away with the wind. And still the boys saw no lad.

"What say?" said Billy. "I don't see Toby. Where is he?"

"In my lee," Jonathan replied. "He's restin'."