Out of the Fog | Page 6

call. But our hearts
sank as the sounds grew fainter and soon we were alone again with the
wind and fog. The fifth day we heard the whistle of an ocean steamship.
"We can surely head this one off," we thought, but she quickly passed
us, too far away to see or hear. It was a bitter disappointment as this
floating hotel, full of warmth, food, water, shelter and companionship,
for the lack of each and all of which we were perishing, rushed by, so
near, yet unconscious and unheeding, in too great a hurry to stop and
listen to our cry for help. I have thought of this since, as I have hurried
along with the crowd in the street of a great city and wondered, if we
stopped to listen, what cry might come to us out of the deep.
The fifth night the sea was running high. We were drifting with a trawl
tub fastened to the "painter" as a drag to keep the boat headed to the
wind, when it began to rain. I spread my oil jacket to catch the water,
and we waited until we could collect enough for a drink, watching the
drops eagerly, as we had tasted neither food nor water since leaving the
vessel five days before. Just as we were about to drink, however, our
boat shipped a sea, filling the oil jacket with salt water, and there was
no more rain.
Every day we passed great flocks of sea fowl floating on the water,
coming frequently almost within an oar's length, but always just out of
reach. We were in worse condition than the Ancient Mariner, with food
as well as water everywhere about us, and not a morsel or a drop to eat
or drink. Thirst is harder to endure than hunger, and yet hunger finally
wakes up the wolf; and the time comes when even the thought of
cannibalism can be entertained without horror. About this time John
asked me, "Well, what do you think?"
"Oh," I said, "I think that one of us will come out of it all right."
He started, as if he thought that I had premature designs on him.
"You need not be afraid," I said, "I'll not take advantage of you."
He knew that I was the stronger and perhaps thought that if I felt as he
did, his chances were very small.
The sixth day, John seemed like a man overwhelmed with the horror of
a situation that had gotten beyond his control. He cowered at the

opposite end of the boat and had said nothing for a long time. Finally
he opened a conversation with a person of whose presence I had not
been conscious.
"Jim," he said, "come, give me a piece."
"Jim who?" I asked. "Piece of what? Where is he?"
"Jim Woodbury," he answered, "don't you see him? There he is, hiding
under that oil jacket. He's been there over half an hour, eating pie, and
he won't give me any."
I tried to laugh him out of his delusion, but the thing was real to him.
Soon he jumped up and said: "I'm going on board; I'm tired of staying
out here."
"How will you get there?" I asked.
"Walk," he answered, "the water ain't deep," and he started to get
overboard.
I caught him and pulled him back into the boat, not any too soon, for if
he had gone overboard, the sharks would probably have gotten him, for
they were not very far away. Every now and then I had seen their fins
cutting the surface of the water, as they patrolled back and forth,
waiting their time, or ours, as if they knew that it was only a question
of time. Soon John started again to get overboard. This time I punished
him so severely that he did not try it again. After that, I had to keep my
eye on him constantly. His ravings about food were not particularly
soothing to my feelings, for I was as hungry as he, only not so
demonstrative about it.
The seventh day drifted slowly by and the fog still held us captive. For
a week we had had no food, no water, and scarcely any sleep; having
our boots on continuously stopped the circulation in our feet with the
same effect as if they had been frozen; we were chilled to the bone; my
boat mate was insane. Since the whistle of the steamship had died away
in the distance, two days before, no sound had come to us out of the fog
but the voices of the wind and the swash of the waves. I knew the chart
of the Banks and had a general idea as to where we were. There is a