was a very sensible suggestion,” said Arthur. “I am sure we shall all benefit from it.”
In a sense, we did. All the seaweed I tasted was rubbery and quite inedible, but we added the water in which it was boiled to our meals of fish, and had our vitamins that way, I suppose.
*
Cooking, cleaning, fishing, so the time passed. Collecting driftwood, exercising in the hold, mending our clothes, so the time passed. Listening to the rain and wondering when it would stop, the time passed; holding evening entertainments and discussions on uncontroversial subjects, the time passed; watching the progress of foot-rot between the toes, the time passed; lying apart, segregated by sexes in cabin and bedroom, the time passed. Making do, the time passed; socks were darned with the unravelled sacking, toothbrushes improvised from the shredded twigs of a branch that floated by. Captain Hunter taught Banner to play the schoolboys’ game of book-cricket by opening at random the pages of the Bible or the Oxford Illustrated Dictionary, and in the evenings Gertrude read aloud to us from the Old Testament—the greatest dramatic narrative of them all, she said. All the books on board,
Oliver Twist, The Rubayat of Omar Khyam, Breakfast Cereals:
1952
, The Collected Plays of William Shakespeare , Better Sight Without Glasses, A Hundred Best Novels Condensed, Rogue Herries, Jamaica Inn, Making and Doing in the House, Making and Doing in the Garden, Britain’s Beauty Spots
, several books by Peter Cheyney and a number of navigational and technical works, all were read many times.
How many days did we continue like this? It cannot have been so long a time, but it soon seemed as if it had been for ever, and would be. We grew into a routine. My temper does not accept authority easily, but I accustomed myself to Arthur’s leadership, nor didSonya question it, since the details of who did what in our everyday administration were not important to her. It was, after all, easier to do what we were told, and wise to submit to a discipline if we were not to fret one another to pieces. So we grew accustomed to the life and to each other, and time passed.
Our complement was not increased. We cannot have been far from land, for we found flotsam in plenty—wood, occasional movables, a few dead bodies, from which, when we could get close enough to them, Arthur insisted we should strip the clothing (but usually it was perished, and the bodies gnawed by fish). We salvaged a deserted rowing boat, and towed it behind us; it had to be bailed out every eight hours, which made another task for Arthur to allot on his daily list. We saw no other vessels at this time. The steadily falling rain confined our field of vision, and our small world was empty. I asked Arthur what he would do if we came across any other survivors, and he replied that it would depend; he did not think anyone we found now would be in a condition to “pull his weight in the boat”.
Once at night some of us thought we heard a faint call in the darkness. Arthur said it was nothing, but he allowed us to go on deck and look. Faintly in the night and rain, some of us thought we saw a yellow light not far away, but Arthur said it was probably phosphorescence ; what light, in any case, could keep alive in the wet? We went inside again.
We worked on at caulking barrels, at contrivingrough furniture from salvaged driftwood—Gertrude even tried to make a waterproof cloak from woven seaweed, but it was not a success. All this, Arthur told us, was against our future life when the waters would subside again, but I do not think we took any great thought for that time; we just did what we were told.
We were surprisingly healthy. As the routine of regular meals, clothes that could now be dried and the more and more frequent warmth of the stove took charge of us, we grew stronger; even my foot-rot was checked. Bounded by the four sides of the raft, secure within its cabin from the rain, we felt life take
In a sense, we did. All the seaweed I tasted was rubbery and quite inedible, but we added the water in which it was boiled to our meals of fish, and had our vitamins that way, I suppose.
*
Cooking, cleaning, fishing, so the time passed. Collecting driftwood, exercising in the hold, mending our clothes, so the time passed. Listening to the rain and wondering when it would stop, the time passed; holding evening entertainments and discussions on uncontroversial subjects, the time passed; watching the progress of foot-rot between the toes, the time passed; lying apart, segregated by sexes in cabin and bedroom, the time passed. Making do, the time passed; socks were darned with the unravelled sacking, toothbrushes improvised from the shredded twigs of a branch that floated by. Captain Hunter taught Banner to play the schoolboys’ game of book-cricket by opening at random the pages of the Bible or the Oxford Illustrated Dictionary, and in the evenings Gertrude read aloud to us from the Old Testament—the greatest dramatic narrative of them all, she said. All the books on board,
Oliver Twist, The Rubayat of Omar Khyam, Breakfast Cereals:
1952
, The Collected Plays of William Shakespeare , Better Sight Without Glasses, A Hundred Best Novels Condensed, Rogue Herries, Jamaica Inn, Making and Doing in the House, Making and Doing in the Garden, Britain’s Beauty Spots
, several books by Peter Cheyney and a number of navigational and technical works, all were read many times.
How many days did we continue like this? It cannot have been so long a time, but it soon seemed as if it had been for ever, and would be. We grew into a routine. My temper does not accept authority easily, but I accustomed myself to Arthur’s leadership, nor didSonya question it, since the details of who did what in our everyday administration were not important to her. It was, after all, easier to do what we were told, and wise to submit to a discipline if we were not to fret one another to pieces. So we grew accustomed to the life and to each other, and time passed.
Our complement was not increased. We cannot have been far from land, for we found flotsam in plenty—wood, occasional movables, a few dead bodies, from which, when we could get close enough to them, Arthur insisted we should strip the clothing (but usually it was perished, and the bodies gnawed by fish). We salvaged a deserted rowing boat, and towed it behind us; it had to be bailed out every eight hours, which made another task for Arthur to allot on his daily list. We saw no other vessels at this time. The steadily falling rain confined our field of vision, and our small world was empty. I asked Arthur what he would do if we came across any other survivors, and he replied that it would depend; he did not think anyone we found now would be in a condition to “pull his weight in the boat”.
Once at night some of us thought we heard a faint call in the darkness. Arthur said it was nothing, but he allowed us to go on deck and look. Faintly in the night and rain, some of us thought we saw a yellow light not far away, but Arthur said it was probably phosphorescence ; what light, in any case, could keep alive in the wet? We went inside again.
We worked on at caulking barrels, at contrivingrough furniture from salvaged driftwood—Gertrude even tried to make a waterproof cloak from woven seaweed, but it was not a success. All this, Arthur told us, was against our future life when the waters would subside again, but I do not think we took any great thought for that time; we just did what we were told.
We were surprisingly healthy. As the routine of regular meals, clothes that could now be dried and the more and more frequent warmth of the stove took charge of us, we grew stronger; even my foot-rot was checked. Bounded by the four sides of the raft, secure within its cabin from the rain, we felt life take
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