Part 24

In analyzing that statement since, with a view to classifying it as truth or otherwise, I have studied my recollections of ducks, and I have come to the conclusion that in a rough sea a duck has every right to be seasick, for she wobbles like everything else that floats. For real comfort, give me something that’s anchored. Nevertheless, I was persuaded to join the party.

Everybody came down at Dinard to see us off, and quite a number even went over to St. Malo with us in the electric launch, for the Hela drew too much water to enter the harbor at Dinard at low tide.

We were a merry party for the first hour on board the Hela—until we struck the gale. It has seemed to me since that our evil genius was hovering over us from the first, and simply waited until it would be out of the question to turn back before emptying the vials of her wrath on our devoted heads. It did not rain. The sun kept a malevolent eye upon us all the time. It simply blew just one straight, unrelenting, unswerving gale. And it came so suddenly. We were all sitting on deck as happy as angels, when, without a word of warning, the Hela simply turned over on her side and threw us all out of our chairs. I caught at a mast as I went by and clung like a limpet. There was tar on the mast. It isn’t there any more. It is on the front of my new white serge yachting dress. Jimmie coasted across the deck, and landed on his hands and knees against the gunwale. If he had persisted in standing up he would have gone overboard. The women all shrieked and remained in a tangled heap of chairs, and rugs, and petticoats, waiting for the yacht to right herself, and for the men to come and pick them up. But the yacht showed no intention of righting herself. She continued to careen in the position of a cab going round Piccadilly Circus on one wheel. The sailors were all running around like ants on an ant-hill, and the captain was shouting orders, and even lending a hand with the ropes himself. I don’t know the nautical terms, but they were taking down the middle sail—the mainsail, that’s it. It did not look dangerous, because the sun kept shining, and I never thought of being frightened. I just clung to the mast, watching the other people right themselves, and laughing, when suddenly everything ceased to be funny. The decks of the Hela took on a wavy motion, and I blinked my eyes in order to see better, for everything was getting very indistinct, and there were green spots on the sun. Suddenly I realized that I was a long way from home, and that I was even a long way from my state-room. I only had just about sense enough left to remember that the mast was my very best friend and that I must cling there.

After that, I remember that somebody came up behind me and pried my hands loose from the mast.

The doctor’s voice said, “Can you walk?”

I smiled feebly and said, “I used to know how.” But evidently my efforts were not highly successful, for he picked me up, white serge, tar, green spots on the sun, and all, and carried me below, a limp and humiliated bit of humanity.

Mrs. Jimmie and Commodore Strossi followed with more anxiety than the occasion warranted.

Then Mrs. Jimmie sent the men away, and I felt pillows under my head, and camphor under my nose, and hot-water bags about me; and I must have gone to sleep or died, or something, for I don’t remember anything more until the next day.

They were very nice to me, for I was such a cheerful invalid. It seemed to surprise them that I could even pretend to be happy. I knew that it must be an uncommon gale from the way Commodore Strossi studied the charts, and because even his wife, for whom the yacht was named, was ill, and she had spent half her life on the sea. The poor little French cabin-boy was ill, too, and went around, with a Nile-green countenance, waiting on people, before he was obliged to retire from active service.

The pitching of the yacht was something so terrible that it got to be hysterically funny. It couldn’t seem dangerous with the sun streaming down the companion-way and past my state-room windows. About five o’clock on the second day they began to tack, and then I heard shrieks of laughter and the crash of china, and groans from the saloon settee, where young Bashforth was lying ghastly ill.

At the first lurch my trunk tipped over, and all the bottles on the wash-stand bounded across to the bed, and most of them struck me on the head. It frightened me so that I shrieked, and Jimmie came running down to see if I was killed.

As I raised my head I saw his horrified gaze fairly riveted to my face, and I felt something softly trickling down. I touched it, and then looked at my hand and discovered that it was wet and red.

“Good heavens, your face is all cut open,” gasped Jimmie, in a voice that revealed his terror.

Mrs. Jimmie was just behind him, and I saw her turn pale. In a flash I saw myself disfigured for life, and probably having to be sewed up. The pain in my face became excruciating, and I began to think yachting rather serious business.

“Run for the doctor, Jimmie,” said his wife. Jimmie obediently ran.

“Does it hurt very much, dear?” she said, sitting on the edge of the bed.

“Awfully,” I murmured.

The doctor came, followed by François, with a basin of hot water and sponges, and a nasty-looking little case of instruments. Mrs. Jimmie held my hand. They turned on the electric lights and opened the windows. Jimmie had my salts. The doctor carefully wet a sponge and tenderly bathed my cheek, and I held my breath ready to shriek if he hurt me. Commodore Strossi stood at the door with an anxious face. Suddenly the doctor reached for a broken bottle half hidden under my pillow.

“Oh, what is it, doctor?” asked Mrs. Jimmie. “What makes you look so queer?”

“This is iodine on her face. Her bottle has emptied itself. That is all.”

We gazed at each other for a moment or two, then I nearly went into hysterics. Jimmie’s face was a study.

“You said it was blood, Jimmie,” I said.

“Well, you said it hurt,” he retorted.

“Well, it did. When you said I was covered with blood it hurt awfully.”

The doctor went out much chagrined that he had not been called upon to sew up a wound. I had a relapse, brought on by young Bashforth’s jeering remarks as he frantically clung to the handles of the locker which formed the back of the settee where he lay prostrate.

I was too utterly done up to reply, for two days’ violent seasickness rather takes the mental ginger out of one’s make-up. But Fate avenged me in this wise. The door of my state-room opened into the dining-room, and my bed faced the door. Opposite to me was the settee on which Bashforth was coiled, and back of him was the locker for the tinned mushrooms, sardines, lobster, shrimp, caviar, deviled ham, and all the things which well people can eat. This locker had brass handles let into the mahogany, and to these handles the poor fellow clung when the yacht lurched.

His cruel words of derision had hardly left his pale lips before they tacked again. He was not holding on, but he hastily snatched at the handles. He was too late, however, for he was tossed from the settee to the legs of the dining-room table (which, fortunately, were anchored) without touching the floor at all. He described a perfect parabola. It was just the way I should have tossed him had I been Destiny. He gripped the table-legs like a vise, coiling himself around them like a poor navy-blue python with a green face. He thought the worst was over, but in his last clutch at the locker he had accidentally opened it, and at the next lurch of the yacht all the cans bounded out and battered his unprotected back like a shower of grape-shot. The yacht lurched again and the cans rolled back. She pitched forward, and again the mushrooms and deviled ham aimed for him. The noise brought everybody, and at first nobody tried to help him. They just couldn’t see because of the tears in their eyes from laughing. As for me, I managed to crawl to the foot of the bed and cling to a post, so weak I couldn’t wipe the tears away, but laying up an amount of enjoyment which will enrich my old age.

Finally, Jimmie got sorry for him, and went and tried to pick him up. But he was laughing so, he dropped him.