VII
I ENCOUNTER A GOOD DOCTOR AND A VIOLENT GALE
I was roused from my sleep by the sharp motion of the vessel; but didnot get very wide awake, for I felt donsie and there was a dullringing in my head along with a great dull pain. I had sense enough,though, to perceive that the storm had come, about which Captain Lukeand the barometer had been at odds; and to shake a little with acreepy terror as I thought of the short work it would have made withme had I waited for it on my mast. But I was too much hurt to feelanything very keenly, and so heavy that even with the quick short rollof the ship to rouse me I kept pretty much in a doze.
After a while the door of my state-room was opened a little and a manpeeped in; and when he saw my open eyes looking at him he came inaltogether, giving me a nod and a smile. He was a tall fellow in ablue uniform, with a face that I liked the looks of; and when he spoketo me I liked the sound of his voice.
"You must be after being own cousin to all the Seven Sleepers ofEphesus and the dog too, my big young man," he said, holding fast tothe upper berth to steady himself. "You've put in ten solid hours, sofar, and you don't seem to be over wide awake yet. Faith, I'd be afterbacking you to sleep standing, like Father O'Rafferty's old dun cow!"
I did not feel up to answering him, but I managed to grin a little,and he went on: "I'm for thinking that I'd better let that broken headof yours alone till this fool of a ship is sitting stillagain--instead of trying to teach the porpoises such tricks of rollingand pitching as never entered into their poor brute minds. But you'lldo without doctoring for the present, myself having last night sewedup all right and tight for you the bit of your scalp that had fetchedaway. How does it feel?"
"It hurts," was all that I could answer.
"And small blame to it," said the doctor, and went on: "It's awell-made thick head you have, and it's tough you are, my son, not tobe killed entirely by such a whack as you got on your brain-box--tosay nothing of your fancy for trying to cure it hydropathically bytaking it into the sea with you when you were for crossing theAtlantic Ocean on the fag-end of a mast. It's much indeed that youhave to learn, I am thinking, both about surgery and about taking careof yourself. But in the former you'll now do well, being in thecompetent hands of a graduate of Dublin University; and in regard toyour incompetence in the latter good reason have you for beingthankful that the _Hurst Castle_ happened to be travelling in theseparts last night, and that her third officer is blessed with a pair ofextra big ears and so happened to hear you talking to him from out ofthe depths of the sea.
"But talking isn't now the best thing for you, and some more of thesleep that you're so fond of is--if only the tumbling of the ship willlet you have it; so take this powder into that mouth of yours whichyou opened so wide when you were conversing with us as we went sailingpast you, and then stop your present chattering and take all the sleepthat you can hold."
With that he put a bitter powder into my mouth, and gave me a drink ofwater after it--raising me up with a wonderful deftness and gentlenessthat I might take it, and settling me back again on the pillow in justthe way that I wanted to lie. "And now be off again to your friendsthe Ephesians," he said; "only remember that if you or they--or theirdog either, poor beasty--wants anything, it's only needed to touchthis electric bell. As to the doggy," he added, with his hand on thedoor-knob, "tell him to poke at the button with the tip of his foolishnose." And with that he opened the door and went away. All thislight friendly talk was such a comfort to me--showing, as it did,along with the good care that I was getting, what kindly people I hadfallen among--that in my weak state I cried a little because of myhappy thankfulness; and then, my weakness and the powder actingtogether to lull me, in spite of the ship's sharp motion I went offagain to sleep.
But that time my sleep did not last long. In less than an hour, Isuppose, the motion became so violent as to shake me awake again--andto give me all that I could do to keep myself from being shot out ofmy berth upon the floor. Presently the doctor came again, fetchingwith him one of the cabin stewards to rig the storm-board at the sideof my berth and some extra pillows with which to wedge me fast. Butthough he gave me a lot more of his pleasant chaff to cheer me I couldsee that his look was anxious, and it seemed to me that the stewardwas badly scared. Between them they managed to stow me pretty tight inmy berth and to make me as comfortable as was possible whileeverything was in such commotion--with the ship bouncing about like apea on a hot shovel and all the wood-work grinding and creaking withthe sudden lifts and strains.
"It's a baddish gale that's got hold of the old _Hurst Castle_, andthat's a fact," the doctor said, when they had finished with me, inanswer to the questioning look that he saw in my eyes. "But it'snothing to worry about," he went on; "except that it's hard on you,with that badly broken head of yours, to be tumbled about worse thanMother O'Donohue's pig when they took it to Limerick fair in a cart.So just lie easy there among your pillows, my son; and pretend thatit's exercise that you are taking for the good of your liver--which isa torpid and a sluggish organ in the best of us, and always the betterfor such a shaking as the sea is giving us now. And be rememberingthat the _Hurst Castle_ is a Clyde-built boat, with every plate andrivet in her as good as a Scotsman knows how to make it--and in suchmatters it's the Sandies who know more than any other men alive. In myown ken she's pulled through storms fit to founder the Giant'sCauseway and been none the worse for 'em, and so it's herself that'scertain to weather this bit of a gale--which has been at its worst noless than two times this same morning, and therefore by all rule andreason must be for breaking soon.
"And be thinking, too," he added as he was leaving me, "that I'll becoming in to look after you now and then when I have a spareminute--for there are some others, I'm sorry to say, who are afterneeding me; and as soon as the gale goes down a bit I'll overhaulagain that cracked head of yours, and likely be singing you at thesame time for your amusement a real Irish song." But not much wasthere of singing, nor of any other show of lightheartedness, aboardthe _Hurst Castle_ during the next twelve hours. So far from breaking,the gale--as the doctor had called it, although in reality it was ahurricane--got worse steadily; with only a lull now and then, asthough for breath-taking, and then a fiercer rush of wind--beforewhich the ship would reel and shiver, while the grinding of her ironframe and the crunching of her wood-work made a sort of wild chorus ofgroans and growls. For all my wedging of pillows I was near to flyingover the storm-board out of my berth with some of the plunges that shetook; and very likely I should have had such a tumble had not thedoctor returned again in a little while and with the mattress from theupper berth so covered me as to jam me fast--and how he managed to dothis, under the circumstances, I am sure I don't know.
When he had finished my packing he bent down over me--or I could nothave heard him--and said: "It's sorry I am for you, my poor boy, foryou're getting just now more than your full share of troubles. Butwe're all in a pickle together, and that's a fact, and the choicebetween us is small. And I'd be for suggesting that if you know such athing as a prayer or two you'll never have a finer opportunity forsaying them than you have now." And by that, and by the friendlysorrowful look that he gave me, I knew that our peril mustbe extreme.
I don't like to think of the next few hours; while I lay there packedtight as any mummy, and with no better than a mummy's chances, as itseemed to me, of ever seeing the live world again--terrified by theawful war of the storm and by the confusion of wild noises, and everynow and then sharply startled by hearing on the deck above me a fiercecrash as something fetched away. It was a bad time, Heaven knows, foreverybody; but for me I thought that it was worst of all. For there Iwas lying in utter helplessness, with the certainty that if the shipfoundered there was not a chance for me--since I must drown solitaryin my state-room, like a rat drowned in a hole.
In the Sargasso Sea Page 7
