Thirst (Punshon)

by E. R. Punshon

 

THIRST

A TRAGEDY OF HOME WATERS

By E. R. Punshon

Illustrated by Oswald Cuningham

ONE could not say the land was far away. It lay just on the starboard beam, dim beneath a haze of heat. Above, the sun poured down its rays from a cloudless, brazen sky upon a sea that was like a pool of oil. The very tar between the planks of the deck was soft and warm to the touch. Even one puff of wind would have meant so much, but no puff came, nor had come for what appeared an eternity of expectation. It chanced that the day was a Sunday, and a more than Sabbath calm seemed to lie upon both sea and shore.

In the boat there were three men. One was a tall, thin man, the oldest of the three, and by profession a doctor. His face was pale and drawn; he was saying to himself that but for his neglect all had been well. In the locker on which he sat was food and to spare: it was drink they needed, and the deficiency was all his fault. They might just as well have had plenty to drink, but in the hurry and bustle of the start it had been overlooked, forgotten, and for that neglect he knew well that he was chiefly responsible. So far they had survived without. Then within sight of land the wind dropped, and there they lay, motionless, helpless, their eyes upon the haven where they would be, where there was drink enough tor an army. They watched it, their mouths dry and parched.

The two other men were younger; one was a mere boy. He lay with his head on the bulwarks, gazing out over the smooth sea towards the heat haze where the land lay. One would have said he hoped by mere force of gaze to draw the land to them, or them to the land. He was the son of the pale man in the stern, his only son. Often enough the father's eyes sought this lad's prostrate form. What the father's thoughts were may be well guessed, but not a word, not a syllable of reproach passed the boy's lips. Perhaps the father could have borne such reproach more easily than this spectacle of his son's hopeless longing for the distant, unreachable shore.

The third man had his back to the other two, and to the shore. His face was dark with an inward passion of anger and protest. A moment's thought, a little care on the part of the pale man in the stern, would have saved all. Then they could have just lain at their ease in the boat and waited with patience the rising of the wind; then all this would have seemed a mere awkward delay. How far otherwise now! This third man was a soldier, and he had never loved the sea, and it seemed the sea was having its revenge upon him. His anger against the pale-faced doctor was twice heated, for but for him he would never have been here at all, as also but for his neglect they would have been as well provided with drink as with food.

By the soldier's side was a tin of sardines. The pale man in the stern had handed them to him. But it was something for his dry mouth and parched throat that the soldier required. Quite deliberately he pushed the tin overboard. It fell with a sullen splash into the sullen sea, and one could have said the oil mingled at once with water that seemed as smooth and oily as itself.

“We may want that later,” said the voice of the pale man in the stern.

The soldier made no answer. It was some time since he had spoken, for, indeed, he was afraid what he might say. It was for this reason, too, that he kept his back turned as resolutely to his two companions as to the haze where the land lay.

“He will never forgive me,” said the pale man to himself. “Never.”

He took out his watch and wound it mechanically. One might have supposed he hoped thus to hasten the passing of the time. It was a Sunday, as they all knew well, too well, and somehow to the pale man the winding of his watch brought Monday nearer

“There must be a breeze soon,” he muttered, “there must be.”

“Perhaps,” said the soldier, without looking round, “perhaps there will be... too late.”

Too late!

That was the secret fear that haunted them all that now the soldier had put into words. The pale man looked round despairingly. None knew better than he how easily the breeze might come, when it came—too late.

Too late!!

These were the words echoing in his heart and brain as he turned and gazed towards the shore, gazed with longing, tortured eyes.

All this time the prostrate boy had not spoken. Even those fatal words, “too late,” had failed to stir his apathy. Youth is ever buoyant or despairing, and this boy had given up hope almost as soon as the breeze fell. Those words, “too late,” merely echoed what for long had been his own secret thought.

“How goes it, Jack?” his father asked with forced gaiety.

The boy looked at him. There was no touch of reproach in his patient eyes, but he pointed with his finger to his mouth and shook his head. This meant he had no longer the power of speech.

His father looked away hurriedly. The soldier emitted a harsh sound between a laugh and a groan. The pale man heard it; for the first time he felt anger against his companion. That the fault was his own, he knew; he admitted it; he took all the blame; but the other need not have laughed ... if that sound were a laugh.

He put his hand in the locker and drew out a bottle, full and corked. He showed it to his son. The boy shuddered and closed his eyes. He knew so well what that bottle held, and, for all he suffered, he could not yet drink from it.

Again the soldier emitted that harsh sound, and this time there was no doubt it was a laugh. The pale man flushed, and was no longer pale, but he did not speak.

“Oh, come,” the soldier said gruffly, “we have not got that far ... not yet.”

He laid an emphasis upon these last two words, and this emphasis meant that unless the breeze rose in half an hour or less ... then the contents of that bottle would have to be shared among them. They all had the same thought—they all knew what that bitter “not yet” signified, and the face of the man in the stern was pale again as he put back the bottle in the locker. Then he took out his watch.

“Unless there is a breeze in half an hour, it will be ... too late!” he said.

“Too late then?” the soldier muttered bitterly; “too late already ... what chance of a breeze have we now?”

But the pale man was not listening. He was bending forward, looking intently. It had seemed to him, he was not sure but he thought, he was not sure but he believed he saw a ripple on the surface of the sea far away... and yet ... yes, there it was.

“Look. look!” he screamed, and pointed.

“By Jove, a breeze!” the soldier muttered hoarsely.

Perhaps he could not trust himself to say more.

They all waited, waited in an anxiety that was terrible.

“It is, it is!” the pale man cried, as the sail he was watching so intently seemed to move faintly and stir, like a sleeping maiden wakening to the kiss of her lover.

“Oh, I say, what awful luck!” cried the boy, his speech restored on the moment; “we shall get in before the pubs close after all.”

“Just in time,” agreed the soldier beamingly. “Old chap,” he said to the pale man, “if we do get ashore before the pubs close, I'll forgive you for forgetting the beer.”

“In less than an hour,” said the pale man confidently, “we shall be sitting in the parlour of 'The Three Captains'; but this will be a lesson to me never to forget the beer when we start for a week-end cruise on a Saturday night.”

“So jolly rotten the way the pubs close,” the boy remarked; “if this breeze hadn't come we should not have been able to get a drop of beer till Monday morning.”

“If you talk about our past miseries, Jack, I'll heave you overboard,” said the soldier, “where you can chuck that herb stuff of yours, doctor,” he added to the still pale but now smiling man in the stern.

With a beatific look the pale man produced the bottle of “herb wine” which an hour after sailing on Saturday night they had discovered to be the only liquid refreshment on board; and far away he hurled it into the depths of the blue sea.

“A spanking breeze,” he said joyously. “We shall be at 'The Three Captains' in half an hour at the outside.”