"Nordhoff, Charles & Hall, James Norman - Bounty 02 - Men Against the Sea 1.0" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hall James)

"Mr. Fryer, did you take this pork?"

"No, sir," Fryer replied, with a sincerity that no one could doubt.

The question was repeated seventeen times, and the seventeen replies all carried conviction.

I remember having heard, or read, that men reduced to starvation in company sometimes lose all sense of moral responsibility, and that cases have been known where men of integrity, under normal conditions, have committed such crimes without any qualms of conscience, stoutly and indignantly denying them, no matter how damning the evidence against them might be. With us there was no evidence as to the possible culprit; most of our company had taken turns at bailing in the bow during the night, which was so black that one could not see one's next neighbour in the boat.

I shall say no more of this wretched affair except that the thief, whoever he may have been, must surely have despised himself. Captain Bligh brought home to him the enormity of the wrong he had done his fellow sufferers in words that he could never forget.

I believed, on the night of the fourteenth of May, that our company had suffered to the limits of endurance. "Another night as bad as this ..." I had thought. And there were to be nine to follow -- nine days and nights, during which time we were continuously wet and all but perished with cold. The wind shifted^rom southeast to northeast, now blowing half a gale, now dying away to a dead calm when the oars would be gotten out to keep the launch before the sea. There were moments of fugitive sunshine, but of such brief duration that they but added to our misery, for we were never able to dry our cloathes.

Our situation on the afternoon of May twenty-third was so like that of the twelfth that it seemed time had stood still. We rode the same mountainous seas, under the same lowering sky. What added to my confused sense that we were doomed to an eternity of misery was that

Mr. Bligh had again remarked to Fryer: "I think we've seen the worst of it."

We had been on starvation rations for twenty-one days past, and, during the whole of this time, wet to the skin and chilled to the bone. Our bodies were covered with salt-water sores, so that the slightest movement was agony, yet we were compelled to move constantly for the purpose of bailing. Many of us were now too weak to raise ourselves to our feet, but we crawled and pulled ourselves about somehow, and, knowing that our lives depended upon it, we could still manage to throw out water.

Never before had I realized what a torment the body could be. But I must add this: neither had I realized the toughness, the fineness, of the human spirit under conditions that try it to the utmost. The miscreant who had stolen the pork served only as a foil to the others, whose conduct was such during these interminable hours of trial as has given me a new and exalted opinion of my fellow beings. Whatever men may say in men's despite in the future, or whatever unfortunate revelations concerning them may come under my own observation, I shall think of the company in the Bounty's launch and retain my firm belief that, in their darkest hours, and in situations that bear upon them even past the limits of endurance, most men show a heroism that lifts them to heights beyond estimation. The cynic may smile at this. I care not. I know whereof I speak. I have seen the matter put to the proof in a company of eighteen whose members, with two exceptions,-- Captain Bligh and Mr. Nelson, -- were men such as one might find in any seacoast town in England.

I will not say that there had been no complaints, no urgent, piteous requests for additional food. There were. I can understand better now than I could then what strength Bligh needed to withstand the entreaties of starving men. He fed the weakest upon wine, a few drops at a time; but every demand for additional food was refused save upon the occasions when a tiny morsel of pork would be added to our mouthful of bread.

I have a vivid recollection of the events of the evening and the night of May twenty-third. Bligh had been continuously at the tiller for thirty-six hours, and he remained there until dawn the following morning. I sat in the bottom of the boat facing him, propped up against the thwart immediately forward of the stern sheets. Nelson lay beside me with his head on my knee. He was frightfully emaciated, and so weak that I believed he had not more than twenty-four hours to live. The strongest of our number were Mr. Bligh, Fryer, Cole, Peckover, Samuel, and the two midshipmen, Tinkler and Hayward. The two latter were at the oars as the last of daylight faded, keeping the launch before the sea.

It had been dead calm for more than two hours, but neither past experience nor the look of the sky gave us reason to expect that it would remain so. The last gray light faded quickly, and soon we were in the complete darkness that had been our portion during so many terrible nights.

About three hours after sunset I had fallen into a doze, and only a moment later, it seemed, I was awakened by the deep humming of the wind and the hiss and wash of breaking sea. I heard Bligh calling to Cole, whose station was forward by the reefed foresail, and immediately afterward solid water came pouring over our quarters. Never had we come so near to foundering as at that moment; indeed, for a few seconds I thought we were lost. Bligh shouted: "Bail for your lives!" and so we did. Not a man of us but realized that we were in the immediate presence of disaster.

The horror of that experience I shall not attempt to describe; but it had this good effect: that it aroused even the weakest from apathy, and called into play reserves of nervous force that we did not know we possessed. As for Captain Bligh, he displayed, throughout the whole of this night, a courage far above my poor powers to depict. Now and then his emaciated form would be clearly outlined for a second or two in a glare of lightning, then swallowed up in darkness. When I had said to Nelson, at Tofoa, that ours was a situation that Bligh was born to meet, I little realized how truthfully I spoke. Worn down though he was by hunger and hardship and lack of sleep, he showed no sign of weakening to the strain. Indeed, the more desperate our situation, the more he seemed to rejoice in it. I say this with no desire to exaggerate. He displayed on this night an exhilaration of mind the more striking in view of the peril of our situation. We passed through a series of violent squalls accompanied by thunder and lightning, and I shall never forget the vivid glimpses I had of him, pne hand gripping the tiller, the other the gunwale, the seas that threatened to swamp us foaming up behind him and showering him with spray.

And I can still hear his voice in the darkness, heartening us all: "We're doing a full six knots, lads! Let that warm your blood if bailing can't do it -- but don't stop bailing!"

Once, in a brief lull between storms, Fryer had suggested that a prayer be said. "No, Mr. Fryer," he replied. "Pray if you like, but to my way of thinking, God expects better than prayers of us at a time like this." It was in this same lull, I remember, that Cole called back, "Sir, shall I relieve you at the tiller?"

"Sit where you are, Mr. Cole," Bligh replied. "Do you think you can handle her better than myself?"

"I know very well I can't," Cole replied. "I was thinking how tired you must be."

A moment of silence followed; then we again heard Bligh's voice: "You are a good man, Mr. Cole, and an able man. I wish there were more like you in the service."

It was a handsome apology, and praise well deserved. I knew how it must have warmed Cole's heart.

The pause between squalls was of short duration. There was more, and worse, to come; and in the midst of it I saw Captain Bligh at the summit of his career.

There was a blinding glare of lightning, followed by a peal of thunder that seemed to shake the very bed of the deep. At that moment a great sea flung the launch into an all but vertical position. And there sat Bligh as on a throne, lifted high above us all, exalted in more than a physical sense.

"Bail, lads!" he shouted. "By God! We're beating the sea itself!"

CHAPTER VIII