Читать книгу Billy Topsail, M.D. - Duncan Norman - Страница 6

In Which the Sudden Death of Cracker is Contemplated as a Thing to Be Desired, Billy Topsail's Whip Disappears, a Mutiny is Declared and the Dogs Howl in the Darkness

Past twelve o'clock and the night as black as a wolf's throat, with the wind blowing a forty-mile gale, thick and stifling with snow, and the ice broken up in ragged pans of varying, secret area – it was no time for any man to stir abroad from the safe place he occupied. There were patches of open water forming near by, and lanes of open water widening and shifting with the drift and spreading of the ice; and somewhere between the cliffs and the moving pack, which had broken away from them, there was a long pitfall of water in the dark. The error of putting the dogs in the traces and attempting to win the shore in a forlorn dash did not even present itself to Billy Topsail's experienced wisdom. Billy Topsail would wait for dawn, to be sure of his path and direction; and meantime – there being no occasion for action – he got back into his wolfskin bag and settled himself for sleep.

It was not hard to go to sleep. Peril of this sort was familiar to Billy Topsail – precarious situations, with life at stake, created by wind, ice, reefs, fog and the sea. There on the ice the situation was completely disclosed and beyond control. Nothing was to be manipulated. Nothing threatened, at any rate, for the moment. Consequently Billy Topsail was not afraid. Had he discovered himself all at once alone in a city; had he been required to confront a garter snake – he had never clapped eyes on a snake —

Placidly reflecting on the factors of danger to be dealt with subsequently, Billy Topsail caught ear, he thought, of a sob and whimper from the midst of Teddy Brisk's dogskin robes. This was the little fellow's first full-fledged adventure. He had been in scrapes before – the little dangers of the harbour and the adjacent rocks and waters and wilderness; gusts of wind; the lap of the sea; the confusion of the near-by back country, and the like of that; but he had never been cast away like the grown men of Tight Cove. And these passages, heroic as they are, and stimulating as they may be to the ambition of the little fellows who listen o' winter nights, are drear and terrifying when first encountered.

Teddy Brisk was doubtless wanting his mother. Perhaps he sobbed. Yet he had concealed his fear and homesickness from Billy Topsail; and that was stoicism enough for any lad of his years – even a lad of the Labrador. Billy Topsail offered him no comfort. It would have shamed the boy to comfort him openly. Once ashore again Teddy Brisk would want to boast, like his elders, and to spin his yarn:

"Well now, lads, there we was, ecod! 'way out there on the ice, me 'n' Billy Topsail; an' the wind was blowin' a gale from the sou'west, an' the snow was flyin' as thick as ever you seed the snow fly, an' the ice was goin' out t' sea on the jump. An' I says t' Billy: 'I'm goin' t' sleep, Billy – an' be blowed t' what comes of it!' An' so I falled asleep as snug an' warm; an' then – "

Billy Topsail ignored the sob and whimper from the depths of the dogskin robes.

"The lad haves t' be hardened," he reflected.

Dawn was windy. It was still snowing – a frosty mist of snow. Billy Topsail put the dogs in the traces and stowed Teddy Brisk away in the komatik. The dogs were uneasy. Something out of the way? What the mischief was the matter? They came unwillingly. It seemed they must be sensing a predicament. Billy Topsail whipped them to their work and presently they bent well enough to the task.

Snow fell all that day. There were glimpses of Ginger Head. In a rift of the gale Teddy Brisk caught sight of the knob of the Scotchman's Breakfast.

Always, however, the way ashore was barred by open water. When Billy Topsail caught sight of the Scotchman's Breakfast for the last time it was in the southwest. This implied that the floe had got beyond the heads of the bay and was moving into the waste reaches of the open sea. At dusk Billy had circled the pan twice – hoping for chance contact with another pan, to the east, and another, and still another; and thus a path to shore. It was a big pan – a square mile or more as yet. When the pinch came, if the pinch should come, Billy thought, the dogs would not be hampered for room.

Why not kill the dogs? No; not yet. They were another man's dogs. In the morning, if the wind held offshore —

Wind and snow would fail. There would be no harsher weather. Billy Topsail made a little fire with his last billets of birchwood. He boiled the kettle and spread a thick slice of bread with a meager discoloration of molasses for Teddy Brisk. What chiefly interested Teddy Brisk was the attitude of the dogs. It was not obedient. There was swagger in it. A crack of the whip sent them leaping away, to be sure; but they intruded again at once – and mutinously persisted in the intrusion.

Teddy Brisk put out a diffident hand towards Smoke. Smoke was an obsequious brute. Ashore he would have been disgustingly grateful for the caress. Now he would not accept it at all. He snarled and sprang away. It was a defiant breach of discipline. What was the matter with the dogs? They had gone saucy all at once. The devil was in the dogs. Nor would they lie down; they withdrew, at last, in a pack, their hunger discouraged, and wandered restlessly in the failing light near by.

Teddy Brisk could not account for this singular behaviour.

It alarmed him.

"Ah, well," said Billy Topsail, "they're all savage with hunger."

"Could you manage with nine, Billy?"

Billy Topsail laughed.

"With ease, my son," said he, "an' glad of it!"

"Is you strong enough t' kill a dog?"

"I'll find that out, Teddy, when the time comes."

"I was 'lowin' that one dog would feed the others an' keep un mild till we gets ashore."

"I've that selfsame thing in mind."

Teddy said eagerly:

"Kill Cracker, Billy!"

"Cracker! Already? 'Twould be sheer murder."

"Aye, kill un now, Billy – ah, kill un right away now, won't you, b'y? That dog haves a grudge on me. He've been watchin' me all day long."

"Ah, no! Hush now, Teddy!"

"I knows that dog, Billy!"

"Ah, now! The wind'll change afore long. We'll drift ashore – maybe in the mornin'. An then – "

"He've his eye on me, Billy!"

Billy Topsail rose.

"You see my whip anywhere?"

"She's lyin' for'ard o' the komatik."

"She's not."

"She was."

"She've gone, b'y!"

"Ecod! Billy, Cracker haves her!"

It was not yet dark. Cracker was sitting close. It was an attitude of jovial expectation. He was on his haunches – head on one side and tail flapping the snow; and he had the walrus whip in his mouth. Apparently he was in the mood to pursue a playful exploit. When Billy Topsail approached he retreated – a little; and when Billy Topsail rushed he dodged, with ease and increasing delight. When Billy Topsail whistled him up and patted to him, and called "Hyuh! Hyuh!" and flattered him with "Good ol' dog!" he yielded nothing more than a deepened attention to the mischievous pleasure in hand.

Always he was beyond reach – just beyond reach. It was tantalizing.

Billy Topsail lost his temper. This was a blunder. It encouraged the dog. To recover the whip was an imperative precaution; but Billy could not accomplish it in a temper. Cracker was willful and agile and determined; and when he had tired – it seemed – of his taunting game, he whisked away, with the pack in chase, and was lost to sight in the gale. It fell dark then; and presently, far away a dog howled, and there was an answering howl, and a chorus of howls. They were gone for good. It was a mutiny. Billy knew that his authority had departed with the symbol of it.

He did not see the whip again.