Boon Island: including Contemporary Accounts of the Wreck of the Nottingham Galley (47 page)

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Authors: Kenneth Roberts,Jack Bales,Richard Warner

Tags: #Survival After Airplane Accidents; Shipwrecks; Etc., #Nottingham (Galley) - Fiction, #Transportation, #Historical, #Boon Island (Me.) - Fiction, #Boon Island, #18th Century, #Survival After Airplane Accidents; Shipwrecks; Etc - Fiction, #Survival After Airplane Accidents; Shipwrecks; Etc, #Shipwrecks, #Fiction, #Literary, #Sea Stories, #Historical Fiction, #Shipwrecks - Maine - Boon Island - History - 18th Century - Fiction, #test, #Boon Island (Me.), #General, #Maine, #History

BOOK: Boon Island: including Contemporary Accounts of the Wreck of the Nottingham Galley
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Page 328
bow and held it where it was while the wave slipped back. The canoeman, still clutching his paddle, climbed out over the bow and helped White and Captain Dean carry the canoe up higher, out of harm's way.
"We knew somebody had been cast away, and probably here," he said. He spoke slowly, and with assurance, a little like those who came up to Oxford from Warwick or Herefordfrom places like Stratford-on-Avon or Broadway, where people have had the benefit of schooling.
"I'm John Dean," the captain said, "master of the
Nottingham
Galley. We went ashore"
He broke off, looked from the canoeman to Langman and back again: then asked, "What day is thissir?"
"This is January 2nd, a Tuesday," the man said. "I'm Nason. Richard Nason. Kittery. Part owner of the sloop
Head of Tide
."
"It can't be Tuesday," Langman said. "It must be Wednesday."
Nason looked at him oddly. "Why must it?"
"Because I kept count," Langman said.
Nason turned back to Captain Dean. "Yesterday was MondayNew Year's Day."
Captain Dean nodded. "We went ashore Monday, December 11th. There was a northeaster blowing."
"You've been on this pile of rocks since the eleventh of December?" Nason asked incredulously. His eyes swept over us, examining us from head to footfrom our oakum hats, with bits of seagull feathers and seagull skin woven into them, the oakum mittens on our hands, the oakum wrappings fastened to our shoulders, chests and legs, the clumsy oakum sheathings of our feet. He shook his head as if he found us incredible.
 
Page 329
"Kittery?" Captain Dean asked. "Isn't that across the river from Portsmouth?"
"Yes," Nason said, "and I better not waste time. We'll have to take word to Portsmouth about you. You need help as much as anyone
I
ever saw!"
"Yes," Captain Dean said. "We need help. When you send word to Portsmouth, see that Captain Long and Captain Furber are told. They're old friends. You tell 'em I'm John Dean of Twickenham, Jasper Dean's brother."
"Wait a minute," Nason said. "I'll write it down." He fished in his clothes and produced a small account book: then stared at Captain Dean again: at me: at Neal Butler.
"No fire all that time?" he asked. "How could you live!"
Christopher Gray broke into a sort of snuffling, such as a dog makes when he whuffles for the scent of an animal behind the wainscoting.
"It seemed like a long time," Captain Dean said apologetically. "We built a boat and lost it. Then we built a raft. This boy's father built it." He put his hand on Neal's shoulder.
Nason cleared his throat. "Oh, yes," he said. "The raft! We figured there'd been two men on it. We figured a lot of men worked to make it, on account of the knots. We found it at high-water mark. Under a tree beyond high-water mark there was a man. One man. With a piece of wood tied to his wrist. He'd used it for a paddle. His hands were all raw, with the bones showing. He got as far as the tree and then I guess he lay down and froze to death."
He shook his head, put his account book back in his pocket, and became suddenly busy. "I'll start a fire for you. Got any wood?"
 
Page 330
"One or two pieces," Captain Dean said.
"You've probably got knives," Nason said. "Slice up wood slivers for kindling." He moved toward the tent.
"What color was the man's hairthe one under the tree?" Captain Dean asked.
"Black," Nason said, "with white streaks."
He looked at Neal. "Was this boy's fatherthe one who built the raftwas he on the raft too?"
"Yes," Captain Dean said, "but he had yellow hair."
"That's too bad," Nason said. "That's a shame."
He took a tinderbox from his shirta tin one, with a candle ring on the topthen went into the tent ahead of the rest of us, being more active and quicker on his feet; but he came out more quickly than, he went in. His cheeks had lost their rosy, clean-shaven look, and were gray and mottled. He held to the canvas of the tent.
"The men are pretty weak," Captain Dean explained. "When it snows or the wind's bad, they don't make the effort to go outside. I've stopped trying to make 'em. You get used to it."
Nason swallowed. "You go in and make a fire hole," he said. "Clear away the oakum in the center. Lay up a circle of rocks. Cut your shavings and put 'em in the circle; then I'll light the tinder and a candle. I'll leave the tinderbox with you."
When Neal and I came past him with rocks to make the circle, Nason put out his hand and took Neal's rock from him.
"I'm sorry about your father," he said.
Neal just nodded, his shoulders back and held higha fine-looking boy, in spite of his oakum helmet and his outlandish swathings.
 
Page 331
"That was quite a thing," Nason said. "Paddling a raft ashore in the dead of winter."
"He wanted to do it," Neal said.
Nason examined him attentively. "We hunted everywhere," he said, "up and down the beaches."
"I saw him in a dream," Neal said. "He got off the raft so it would be sure to get to shore."
Nason turned to look at the sloop: then at the sky in the southeast. Some of the color came back to his cheeks. "Yes," he said slowly. "That would explain it."
"Could I find the place where the raft came ashore?" Neal asked. "I've got to go there."
"I'll take you there myself," Nason said heartily. "You can stay with us. I've got five brothers and four sisters. There's so many Nasons in Kittery that we've worn grooves in the river, sailing up and down it. You come and stay with us: you'll fit right in between Benjamin and William."
Neal looked at him, then at me. For the first time since I had known him, he was on the verge of tears.
Nason seemed embarrassed. He gave the rock back to Neal, took a deep breath and entered the tent again.
The circle of rocks was almost finished. The slivers of wood were stacked in the center.
Nason fell to his knees, pried the cover from his tinderbox, took out the flint and steel and placed a small piece of charred linen on the slivers. He struck the flint with the steel rod; the spark ignited the linen; but when he gently held the point of a sliver to the flame, it wavered and died.
"Here," he said to the silent, kneeling figures around him, "slice the ends of those slivers so they're shredded." He pulled a sheath knife from his belt and feathered the
 
Page 332
end of one of the slivers. Captain Dean, Langman, George White, Neal and I did the same.
"Now I'll do what I should have done first," Nason said. "The sight of you people started me off on the wrong foot. I'll try to light the candle."
He stood the stub of a candle in the candle ring on the top of the tinderbox, rested a piece of tinder against the wick, and again struck sparks from the flint. The tinder ignited: flickered; went out.
"Damn it," Nason said, suddenly exasperated, "don't crowd up so close to me! If you can't move back, stop breathing! How can I start a fire with you blowing your breaths all over me!"
He looked at Neal and was suddenly contrite. "Hear me talk," he said disgustedly, "and you without fire for more than three weeks!"
He produced another piece of tinder, placed it on the candle wick, struck the flint with the steeland the tinder caught: the wick smokedand a yellow flame stood up from it!
Nason turned his head away and whooshed with relief. He stacked up the feathered bits of wood like a little tent, lit one of them from the candle. The flame spread from one stick to another.
Captain Dean leaned down and caught one of Nason's hands in his.
The odor of smoke must have affected my eyes, because I couldn't see for the wetness in them.
Fire! Warmth! Cooked food! Who knows what it's like to be without them?
Only animals! I had the thought that some of us had truly become animals.
 
Page 333
For the second time Nason took out his little account book and a stub of a pencil, and in the book he wrote down the facts that Captain Dean had given him.
"I'll go to Portsmouth tonight if I can," he said. "If I can't, I'll go first thing in the morning. I'll see Governor Wentworth. I know Captain Furber and Captain Long. They'll send proper-sized vessels for you, and proper boats to take you offand food."
He looked at the emaciated, bearded faces, accentuated by the flickering light of the fire. "What have you lived on? What have you had to eat?"
"We saved some things from the ship," Captain Dean said. "Some cheese and meat. Then we had mussels and a seagull and seaweed."
"My God!" Nason said. "Seaweed!" He made another note in his account book, thrust it in his pocket and scrambled from the tent.
"The wind's moving into the southeast," he said. "I don't like it."
The tide was half out, and the breakers were pounding on the uncovered ledges.
"I can't run the risk of launching that canoe where I ran in," Nason said.
Captain Dean agreed. "I think the safest place is around to the northwest. There's a deep cove we can show you."
Nason studied that rim of surf. It was pounding the island from every side, but certainly the waves were less frequent, the sudsy area larger to the north, showing that the drift was toward the mainland. Everywhere else the drift was onshore.
"All right," Nason said, "I'll send the sloop around to
 
Page 334
the north." He looked at us uncertainly. "Can any of you people help me get my canoe across the island?"
"We'll all help you," Captain Dean said. "Four men'll have to stay here and tend that fire. Miles, you stay. And Langman. Keep Graystock and Saver here, too. Watch that fire! Whatever you do, don't choke it! Nurse it! And put the tinderbox and candle out of harm's way."
He went into the tent and looked at the brisk little fire while Nason set off in the direction of the sloop, gesticulating to his shipmatessweeping his arm around to the north: pointing insistently to the northwest.
The others followed along behind him, the captain and Neal, Christopher Gray, George White and Charles Mellenall but Henry Dean, who lay near the fire, twitching dangerously. If Henry should have an attack of epilepsy now, there was no telling what might happen to the fire.
The sloop's jib rose: her anchor came up and was catted, and she went dipping off to the north, over the long surges; then bore around to the westward, so that we knew Nason had been understood.
The little fire burned brightly, and we stood damp pieces of wood around the circle of rocks, hoping that the burning shavings would dry them out. While we cut more shavings, Graystock and Saver pleaded for meatfor just one slice of meat. "We're wasting this fire," Saver said. "We could be roasting meat over it."
"Keep on cutting shavings," I told them. "Under the circumstances, I think the captain'll let us have more tonight, when there's no danger of losing the fire."
To watch the progress of that bark canoe across the island was harrowing. Nason and the captain carried the

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