Color
Record No. 41, Side B:
This
story is written in seven parts, so I’ll be posting one part each day for a
week J
The Open
Boat
By
Stephen Crane
I
None of
them knew the color of the sky. Their eyes glanced level, and were fastened
upon the waves that swept toward them. These waves were of the hue of slate,
save for the tops, which were of foaming white, and all of the men knew the
colors of the sea. The horizon narrowed and widened, and dipped and rose, and
at all times its edge was jagged with waves that seemed thrust up in points
like rocks.
Many a
man ought to have a bath-tub larger than the boat which here rode upon the sea.
These waves were most wrongfully and barbarously abrupt and tall, and each
froth-top was a problem in small boat navigation.
The cook
squatted in the bottom and looked with both eyes at the six inches of gunwale
which separated him from the ocean. His sleeves were rolled over his fat
forearms, and the two flaps of his unbuttoned vest dangled as he bent to bail
out the boat. Often he said: "Gawd! That was a narrow clip." As he
remarked it he invariably gazed eastward over the broken sea.
The
oiler, steering with one of the two oars in the boat, sometimes raised himself
suddenly to keep clear of water that swirled in over the stern. It was a thin
little oar and it seemed often ready to snap.
The
correspondent, pulling at the other oar, watched the waves and wondered why he
was there.
The
injured captain, lying in the bow, was at this time buried in that profound
dejection and indifference which comes, temporarily at least, to even the
bravest and most enduring when, willy nilly, the firm fails, the army loses,
the ship goes down. The mind of the master of a vessel is rooted deep in the
timbers of her, though he command for a day or a decade, and this captain had
on him the stern impression of a scene in the grays of dawn of seven turned
faces, and later a stump of a top-mast with a white ball on it that slashed to
and fro at the waves, went low and lower, and down. Thereafter there was
something strange in his voice. Although steady, it was deep with mourning, and
of a quality beyond oration or tears.
"Keep'er
a little more south, Billie," said he.
"'A
little more south,' sir," said the oiler in the stern.
A seat in
this boat was not unlike a seat upon a bucking broncho, and, by the same token,
a broncho is not much smaller. The craft pranced and reared, and plunged like
an animal. As each wave came, and she rose for it, she seemed like a horse
making at a fence outrageously high. The manner of her scramble over these walls
of water is a mystic thing, and, moreover, at the top of them were ordinarily
these problems in white water, the foam racing down from the summit of each
wave, requiring a new leap, and a leap from the air. Then, after scornfully
bumping a crest, she would slide, and race, and splash down a long incline and
arrive bobbing and nodding in front of the next menace.
A
singular disadvantage of the sea lies in the fact that after successfully
surmounting one wave you discover that there is another behind it just as
important and just as nervously anxious to do something effective in the way of
swamping boats. In a ten-foot dingey one can get an idea of the resources of
the sea in the line of waves that is not probable to the average experience,
which is never at sea in a dingey. As each slaty wall of water approached, it
shut all else from the view of the men in the boat, and it was not difficult to
imagine that this particular wave was the final outburst of the ocean, the last
effort of the grim water. There was a terrible grace in the move of the waves,
and they came in silence, save for the snarling of the crests.
In the
wan light, the faces of the men must have been gray. Their eyes must have
glinted in strange ways as they gazed steadily astern. Viewed from a balcony,
the whole thing would doubtlessly have been weirdly picturesque. But the men in
the boat had no time to see it, and if they had had leisure there were other
things to occupy their minds. The sun swung steadily up the sky, and they knew
it was broad day because the color of the sea changed from slate to
emerald-green, streaked with amber lights, and the foam was like tumbling snow.
The process of the breaking day was unknown to them. They were aware only of
this effect upon the color of the waves that rolled toward them.
In
disjointed sentences the cook and the correspondent argued as to the difference
between a life-saving station and a house of refuge. The cook had said:
"There's a house of refuge just north of the Mosquito Inlet Light, and as soon
as they see us, they'll come off in their boat and pick us up."
"As
soon as who see us?" said the correspondent.
"The
crew," said the cook.
"Houses
of refuge don't have crews," said the correspondent. "As I understand
them, they are only places where clothes and grub are stored for the benefit of
shipwrecked people. They don't carry crews."
"Oh,
yes, they do," said the cook.
"No,
they don't," said the correspondent.
"Well,
we're not there yet, anyhow," said the oiler, in the stern.
"Well,"
said the cook, "perhaps it's not a house of refuge that I'm thinking of as
being near Mosquito Inlet Light. Perhaps it's a life-saving station."
"We're
not there yet," said the oiler, in the stern.
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