Fresh easterly winds

HEYWOOD BROUN

Dr. Bonnard's patients were few in number and their current ailments, as far as he could judge, were trivial. Mrs. Wheeler, over in Miami, had psychic heart attacks at inconvenient hours, but the last word from her was that she would not return to the Beach until the hurricane season was definitely over. And so the doctor groaned and cursed as he awoke to the persistent ringing of the telephone beside his bed. He looked at his watch and noted that it was three a. m., before he picked up the receiver. "What fresh hell is this, George?" said Dr. Bonnard to the night clerk.

"Can't tell you, Doc. Old man in 607 says he must have a doctor right away. Name is Fred Warren and he comes from Stapleton, Staten Island."

"Some fat Yankee stock broker who thinks that fifteen-mile wind outside his window is another hurricane," complained Bonnard.

"I couldn't say," replied George. "He wouldn't tell me anything about his ailment and he isn't fat. Don't look like a stock broker, but he hasn't confided his line to me. Better pull on your pants, Doc, and find out what's the matter with him. What are you kicking about? He's only half way down the hall on your same floor. Practically an office call."

The young physician slipped into a few clothes and picked up his tools. His room was at the back of the hotel but as he came into the corridor he realized what a racket the wind and waves were making. To one who had never heard a hurricane it might very well sound like the real thing, he admitted grudgingly.

A high-pitched voice told him to come in when he knocked at the door of 607. All the lights were on and his patient was sitting up in bed with two pillows propped behind him. It was a thin, well-modelled face with high cheekbones and blue eyes of an extraordinary intensity. This wouldn't be a stock broker. This man was weathered like a rock. He stared fixedly at the doctor and then said in a low voice, "Your Honor, I did what I thought was best. I have nothing to be ashamed of."

Very quickly he added, "I didn't mean to say that. I'm confused. I know you're the surgeon. Sit down."

Dr. Bonnard sat on the side of the bed. "What seems to be wrong?" he asked. "What can I do for you?"

"I can't sleep," said the old man, "I haven't slept for the five nights I've been here. But it's worse than that. I'm going crazy. It's the sound of the wind and the sound of the waves." A gust caught the shade and rattled it against the window.

Dr. Bonnard nodded his head sympathetically. "I understand," he said. "High tide pretty nearly comes up into your room at this hotel. It's almost like being on a ship. But you must—"

The old man shot one hand in front of his eyes.

"The ship," he cried, in a loud voice. "That's it, the ship."

"Now calm yourself. Let me finish what I started to say. You must forget about the wind. I can assure you it doesn't amount to anything. I know what I'm talking about. I'm a Florida cracker, born and bred. I've been through three hurricanes. This little storm tonight couldn't possibly hurt you. This isn't much more than a twenty-mile wind."

Something of the fierceness departed from the eyes of the old man. "Less, much less. About a ten-knot breeze. Easterly right now but swinging to the south. She'll be dead calm in the morning but I can't wait that long."

"Why, you're a sailor," exclaimed Bonnard. "You've been through hurricanes yourself."

"I was the captain of a liner and I have seen hurricanes."

"Then why," asked the doctor, "should a night like this disturb you? I should think it would remind you of old times before you quit the sea."

Bonnard was startled by the look of anguish which passed across the face of Captain Warren. "The sea gives up its dead," said the old man, "and sometimes the living too." He began to cry but checked himself with a great effort. "I've done that only twice before," he explained. "When I was twelve and ran away to sea and the night I lost the Malibar. You said, a few minutes ago, that a night like this couldn't possibly hurt anybody. You wouldn't know. It was on a night like this I lost the Malibar."

"Why, I remember that dimly," said the doctor, "but it was a long time ago. Seven or eight years. The Malibar burned off the coast of Cuba."

"I remember better, it was five years ago tonight. And she burned on a reef outside the harbor of Port au Prince. They said I shouldn't have tried to beach her and that when I ordered full speed ahead I increased the draft. I knew that. But I had to make my choice between fire and flood. I was the captain of the Malibar and but for that unknown reef I'd have saved the passengers and the crew. We were caught in a trap. It's like that now. I wait for the sweet feel of headway. The wind beats against us and the waves pound at our bow. We don't fight back. We're caught and sucked down solid by the deadly sand."

"Yes, captain, but even five years is a long time. It wasn't your fault. Did you ever stop to think of that?"

"Have I ever thought of anything else? I was acquitted. The court couldn't call me a coward. I was the last to leave the Malibar. They just called me a fool and let me go. I was a free man—free to do anything but go to sea again."

"You've been on no vessel since the accident to the Malibar?"

"When I walked out of court a little more than four years ago I went back to Staten Island on the municipal ferryboat John ]. Timmins. My house, the house in which 1 was born, is on a hill that overlooks the harbor. You can see the ships of all the world slide in and slide out again. I saw them when I was a boy before I ran away to sea. I used to look out of the window and pray that some day I would be the captain of a liner. And I was the captain of a liner for eleven hours. The master of the ship died of a stroke the morning before the blaze began. My prayer was answered."

"I know it's pretty hard, Captain," said Dr. Bonnard, gently, "but isn't there any way in which you can forget? Do you think it's a good thing to stay in that house that overlooks the harbor of New York or to tear your heart out crossing the bay in the ferry?"

"It's my house. That's why I live there. I haven't even stolen a look at the ships for the last four years. I've been sensible about that. All the windows at the front of the house have been boarded up. I've got a garden in back—some flowers and a few vegetables. I can't see anything from there. Of course, in the fog I can hear them. That hurts. Is it possible, doctor, that I want to be hurt? Even though I don't look at them, somehow I want to feel that they're there. God knows I don't want to get close. That started this attack. It isn't just tonight. It began a week ago. I had to go across to New York. My doctor lives there. He wras ship's surgeon on the Chiyo Mara when I was second officer. But he's a doctor now—a big doctor. I couldn't ask him to come to Staten Island. He wouldn't let me go back. Seeing the ships upset me. I couldn't board up the windows of the ferryboat. The doctor advised me to come to this place. There's something wrong with me. I get dizzy. I think he was trying to tell me that I might drop dead. Maybe he thought I'd like to die with the sound of the wind and the waves in my ears."

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"Well, wouldn't you?"

The old man listened while three white combers lashed the unresisting beach. "Yes," he said, "with the engines going and the screws turning. Headway! Headway! But not caught on a stinking sandbar. Give them full speed ahead, chief. We'll beach her before she burns if they'll stick to their posts. I'm sorry. I'm getting confused again. I thought for a minute you were the chief engineer. Now I remember you're the surgeon. You can't help me."

Dr. Bonnard nodded gravely. "Not much," he admitted. "But I can give you a pill to make you sleep till morning."

"And in the morning?" asked Captain Frederick Warren, late master of the Mali bar. "And the next morning? And the morning after that?"

Dr. Bonnard made up his mind almost immediately. "You're right," he said. "I'll leave the whole bottle of pills here beside your bed. I'm only the ship's surgeon. It's for you to decide whether you want to make full speed ahead and beach her before she burns. You're the captain."