Then the almost ceaseless bad
weather, and the many squalid conditions of life, were wearing to body
and soul.
An abominable day broke soon after Frank had sailed for home, and a sea
got up which threatened to shake the spars out of our smack. Half a gale
blew; then a whole gale; then a semi-hurricane, and at last all the
ships had to take in the fourth reef in the mainsail. The two Samaritans
were squatting on the floor in the cabin (after they had nailed canvas
strips across the sides of the berths to prevent the patients from
falling out), for no muscular power on earth could have enabled its
possessor to keep his place on a high seat in that maddening jump. It
was enough to jerk the pipe from one's mouth. The deck was all the time
in a smother of half-frozen slush, and the seas were so wall-sided that
the said slush fell in great plumps from side to side with a force which
plucked the men off their legs several times. Again and again it
appeared as if the smack must fall off the sides of the steep seas, as
the long screw colliers sometimes do in the Bay of Biscay when the
three crossing drifts meet. It was a heartbreaking day, and, at the very
worst, a smack bore down as if he meant to come right into the Mission
vessel. Sweeping under the lee and stopping his vessel, the smack's
skipper hailed. "Got the doctor on board?" Down went the newcomer into
the trough, leaving just a glimpse of his truck. Up again with a rolling
wave.
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