He paused for a moment and getting no response carried on. "Well, they was homeward bound and got set way south when the fog set in. Couldn't see nothing. The wind was too light to blow it way. So the mate sends the bosun to the fo'c'sle head with the foghorn. An' the bosun starts cranking and horn blows loud and long, then he stops and listens and sure enough way off in the distance, he hears another foghorn. Calls back to the mate that there is a ship out there.
“So he keeps cranking and then listening and the ship seems to be getting closer, and pretty soon everybody can hear the other foghorn. The mate sends a boy down to tell the captain that there is a ship in the fog. The captain sends a message back to call him when it is in sight. Course, with that fog, they might never see him. And the bosun keeps cranking the foghorn and the other foghorn keeps getting closer, till suddenly, the captain rushes up on deck. 'You idiot,' he yells at the mate. 'That's no ship, that's ice.' He orders the wheel hard over.
“Only a few minutes later, what had looked like a solid wall of fog turns out was a solid wall of ice. A bloody ice island, tall as the maintop. The other ship they'd been hearing was the echo of their own bloody horn off the ice." Hanson across the table nodded his head. Ice could do that.
“They'd just begun the turn, but the wind was so light they barely had steerage. The jib-boom crunches into the ice and is torn clean off. The sudden yank on the forestay brings down the fore t'gallantmast too. They get swung around so they are right alongside the ice wall, pretty as you please, just as if they were tied up on the Mersey docks with the gates open at high tide.
“Once they cleared away the mess of rigging, they launched the boats and towed the ship away from the ice. I hear tell that that was a bloody long row. They say that that wall of ice seemed to run on forever. When they finally found clear water, the captain set a course for the Falklands and they limped into Port Stanley. The ship was sprung forward, so they were pumping for their lives the whole way in. The underwriters condemned her right then and there. Not worth the cost of repair.”
“Least not at Port Stanley prices," Frenchie piped in.
“Sure, sure enough. Sold her as a coal barge. Still there, for all I know. They all got a steamer ride home.”
“Wouldn't mind a steamer ride home, myself," Hanson mumbled.
Will just shivered involuntarily and hoped that the Lady Rebecca never sailed that far south.
Fred was two bunks down from Jerry the Greek, who, with his leg crushed, was insensible half the time and moaning in agony the rest. The captain or the carpenter checked in on him every few days for what good they could do. It didn't take long for the smell from his berth to tell the tale. The leg was infected and becoming gangrenous. Everyone knew that odor.
Gronberg took off his cap when he entered the captain's dayroom. Captain Barker looked up from the chart. The light from the lantern above the chart table swung in an arc with the roll of the ship.
“Captain, Jerry the Greek is gonna die unless you do somet'ing right quick.”
“Is it that bad?”
“Well, sir. He's feverish and the leg is stinkin'. If it doesn't come off soon, he a dead man. The gangrene is set in, and it'll spread. I've seen it happen.”
Captain Barker looked down at the chart again for a long moment, before looking back at the carpenter. "Have you ever amputated a leg, Mr. Gronberg?”
The carpenter blanched. "No, sir.”
The captain thought, Well, neither have I, but saw no need to say so.
“All right. Get your sharpest saw. Take it to the cook and have him sterilize it in boiling water. And have him sharpen his best knife. Make sure it is really sharp. Have him sterilize that, too. And get the sail maker. I may need Mr. Pugsley's sewing skills for the stitches. Have him heat up a can of tar on the cook's stove. I'll meet you in the fo'c'sle.”
When the carpenter left, the captain pulled down his copy of the Ship Captain's Medical Guide, to consult the appropriate sections. After reading what little there was, he put the book back and sat, suddenly painfully aware of the motion of the ship as she rolled and pitched in the running seas.
He stood, grabbed his coat, and unlocked a cabinet next to the chart table. He took out a flask of strong rum, which he slipped into his pocket.
Captain Barker was struck by the smell of rotting flesh as soon as he stepped into the fo'c'sle cabin. Gronberg, Pugsley and Jeremiah the cook were waiting for him. Jerry was in his bunk, barely conscious, covered by a blanket.
“Get another lantern over here," Barker said. "I need to see what I am doing." He pulled the blanket back. The sailor's lower left leg was shades of mottled blue, black and green to just above the knee. The stench almost turned his stomach and he wanted nothing more than to turn and run out of the cabin back into the wind. He steadied himself. As captain, he was the only medical officer aboard the ship. This was his duty to perform. He could be sick once it was over.
“I need a pile of blankets to raise up the leg." Pugsley handed him several folded blankets and he reached down and lifted Jerry's thigh and slid them underneath. He looked over at Pugsley, Gronberg and Jeremiah, who were looking back at him expectantly.
“Mr. Pugsley, I'll ask you to secure a tourniquet, right about here," he said, motioning with his hand across Jerry's thigh. "Once I cut away the leg, you'll tie off the large veins and arteries with twine. Any additional bleeding once the tourniquet is released you will cauterize with hot tar. Please strap him down as well as you can.”
Pugsley stepped forward with a length of hemp rope and wrapped it around Jerry's thigh.
“Mr. Gronberg, you will assist me. Please stand by to hand me the saw after I cut the flesh and muscle.
“Jeremiah and you—Fred, isn't it?”
“Aye, sir.”
“You and Jeremiah hold him down the best you can. I want him absolutely still." Barker looked up at the lantern swaying as the ship rolled. "Well, as still as possible, at any rate.
“Jeremiah, the knife." The Jamaican cook handed him a large butcher knife that flashed in the lantern light.
“Did you sharpen it as sharp as you can possibly make it?”
“Yes, sir, Cap'n. That could cut the whiskers of Satan hisself.”
“As long as it cuts flesh cleanly." Barker inspected the blade and then handed it back to the cook. He took the flask of rum from his coat pocket, opened it and handed it to Gronberg.
“If you will do the honors," he said, holding out both hands.
For a moment the carpenter looked confused.
“Pour some rum over my hands.”
“Ah yah, of course, sir." He poured a dollop as Barker rubbed his hands together quickly.
“Now pour some over the knife. Good. That should do. Mr. Pugsley, is the tourniquet ready?”
“Aye, sir.”
Baker took a deep breath. Nothing more to be done but to start cutting. He considered taking a drink of the rum, but thought better of it. He looked at Jerry's face, pale and drawn, and wondered whether the amputation might kill him anyway. He took another deep breath and braced his legs so that he was pressed against the bunk to resist being tossed about by the roll and pitch of the ship as much possible.
“The knife, Jeremiah.”
He worked as quickly as he could, first slicing and peeling back a strip of skin that could be sewn over the stump. As he cut, Jerry cried out but Fred and Jeremiah were at his shoulders pressing him down against the bunk.
“I think he's passed out, sir.”
The captain kept cutting into the leg, slicing through muscle, tendon, arteries and veins, using his full strength until he hit bone and then moving around to slice away beneath the femur until all the muscle was cut and only the white bone remained. The tourniquet reduced the flow of blood from the severed arteries and veins to an ooze.