Grant Allen - Wednesday the Tenth, A Tale of the South Pacific

I've gone out of my way so far, as I said before, to tell you this little episode of life in the South Pacific, partly in order to let you know who Nassaline was and how we came by him; but partly also to give you a side glimpse of the sort of gentry, both European and native, one may chance to knock up against in those remote regions. It'll help you to understand the rest of my yarn. And now, if you please, I'll tack back again once more into my proper course, to the spot where I broke off in sight of Erromanga.

Presently, as we headed towards the black object on the horizon, Nassaline stretched out that skinny finger of his once more (no amount of feeding ever seemed to make Nassaline one ounce fatter), and cried out in his shrill little piping voice, "Two man on the boat! him makey signs for call us!"

I'd give anything to have eyes as sharp as those Polynesians. I looked across the sea, and the loppy waves in the foreground, and could just make out with the naked eye that the row-boat had something that looked like a red handkerchief tied to her bare mast, and a white signal flapping in the wind below it; but not a living soul could I distinguish in her without my binocular. So I put up my glasses and looked again. Sure enough, there they were, two miserable objects, clinging as it seemed half-dead to the mast, and making most piteous signs with their hands to attract our attention. As soon as they saw that we had really sighted them, and were altering our course to pick them up, their joy and delight knew no bounds, as we judged. They flung up their arms ecstatically into the air, and then sank back, exhausted, as I guessed, on to the thwarts where they had long ceased sitting or rowing.

They were wearied out, I imagined, with long buffeting against that angry and immeasurable sea, and must soon have succumbed to fatigue if we hadn't caught sight of them.

We put on all steam, as in duty bound, and made towards them hastily. By and by, my brother Jim, who had been off watch, came up from below and joined me on deck to see what was going forward. At the same moment Nassaline cried out once more, "Him no two man! Him two boy! Two English boy! Him hungry like a dying!" And as he spoke, he held his own skinny bare arm up to his mouth dramatically, and took a good bite at it, as if to indicate in dumb show that the crew of the boat were now almost ready to eat one another.

Jim looked through the glasses, and handed them over to me in turn. "By George, Julian," he said, "Nassaline's right. It's a couple of boys, and to judge by the look of them, they're not far off starving!"

I seized the glasses and fixed them upon the boat. We were getting nearer now, and could make out the features of its occupants quite distinctly. A more pitiable sight never met my eyes. Her whole crew consisted of two white-faced lads, apparently about twelve or thirteen years old, dressed in loose blue cotton shirts and European trousers, but horribly pinched with hunger and thirst, and evidently so weak as to be almost incapable of clinging to the bare mast whence they were trying to signal us.

Now, you land-loving folk can hardly realize, I dare say, what such an incident means at sea; but to Jim and me, who had sailed the lonely Pacific together for five years at a stretch, that pathetic sight was full both of horror and unspeakable mystery. For anybody, even grown men long used to the ocean, to be navigating that awful expanse of water alone in an empty boat is little short of ghastly. Just think what it means! A stormy sheet that stretches from the north pole to the south without one streak of continuous land to break it; a stormy sheet on which the winds and waves may buffet you about in almost any direction for five thousand miles, with only the stray chance of some remote oceanic isle to drift upon, or some coral reef to swallow you up with its gigantic breakers. But a couple of boys! – mere children almost! – alone, and starving, on that immense desert of almost untraveled water! On the Atlantic itself your chance of being picked up from open boats by a passing vessel is slight enough, heaven knows! but on the Pacific, where ships are few and routes are far apart, your only alternative to starvation or foundering is to find yourself cast on the tender mercies of the cannibal Kanaka. No wonder I looked at Jim, and Jim looked at me, and each of us saw unaccustomed tears standing half ashamed in the eyes of the other.

"Stop her!" I cried. "Lower the gig, Tom Blake! Jim, we must go ourselves and fetch these poor fellows."

At the sound of my bell the engineer pulled up the Albatross short and sharp, with admirable precision, and we lowered our boat to go out and meet them. As we drew nearer and nearer with each stroke of our oars, I could see still more plainly to what a terrible pitch of destitution and distress these poor lads had been subjected during their awful journey. Their cheeks were sunken, and their eyes seemed to stand back far in the hollow sockets. Their pallid white hands hardly clung to the mast by convulsive efforts with hooked fingers. They had used up their last reserve of strength in their wild efforts to attract our attention.

I thanked heaven it was Nassaline who kept watch at the mast-head when they first hove in sight. No European eye could ever have discovered the meaning of that faint black speck upon the horizon. If it hadn't been for the sharp vision of our keen Polynesian friend, these two helpless children might have drifted on in their frail craft for ever, till they wasted away with hunger and thirst under the broiling eye of the hot Pacific noontide.

We pulled alongside, and lifted them into the gig. As we reached them, both boys fell back faint with fatigue and with the sudden joy of their unexpected deliverance. "Quick, quick, Jim! your flask!" I cried, for we had brought out a little weak brandy and water on purpose. "Pour it slowly down their throats – not too fast at first – just a drop at a time, for fear of choking them."

Jim held the youngest boy's head on his lap, and opened those parched lips of his that looked as dry as a piece of battered old shoe-leather. The tongue lolled out between the open teeth like a thirsty dog's at midsummer, and was hard and rough as a rasp with long weary watching. We judged the lad at sight to be twelve years old or thereabouts. Jim put the flask to his lips, and let a few drops trickle slowly down his burnt throat. At touch of the soft liquid the boy's lips closed over the mouth of the flask with a wild movement of delight, and he sucked in eagerly, as you may see a child in arms suck at the mouthpiece of its empty feeding-bottle. "That's well," I said. "He's all right, at any rate. As long as he has strength enough to pull at the flask like that, we shall bring him round in the end somehow."

We took away the flask as soon as we thought he'd had as much as was good for him at the time, and let his head fall back once more upon Jim's kindly shoulder. Now that the first wild flush of delight at their rescue was fairly over, a reaction had set in; their nerves and muscles gave way simultaneously, and the poor lad fell back, half-fainting, half-sleeping, just where Jim with his fatherly solicitude chose to lay him.

Tom Blake and I turned to the elder lad. His was a harder and more desperate case. Perhaps he had tried more eagerly to save his helpless brother; perhaps the sense of responsibility for another's life had weighed heavier upon him at his age – for he looked fourteen; but at any rate he was well-nigh dead with exposure and exhaustion. The first few drops we poured down his throat he was clearly quite unable to swallow. They gurgled back insensibly. Tom Blake took out his handkerchief, and tearing off a strip, soaked it in brandy and water in the cup end of the flask; then he gently moistened the inside of the poor lad's mouth and throat with it, till at last a faint swallowing motion was set up in the gullet. At that, we poured down some five drops cautiously. To our delight and relief they were slowly gulped down, and the poor white mouth stood agape like a young bird's in mute appeal for more water – more water.