The captain looked through his
looking glass. Far to the stern he saw what the lookout was shouting about. A man on a raft. Frantically waving a piece of white cloth. They were hundreds of miles from any body of land.
"Hard astern, Mr. MacGregor!"
He bellowed the command.
The great ship moaned as the sails were set and reset. The fellow was still waving frantically unsure if the ship had spotted him or if they would rescue him. Then you could see it in his body , the realization the the ship was headed toward him- a kind of physical sigh went through his figure.
Once aboard he said his name was Davis Farnsworth. He had been aboard the the whaling ship Marie Souter out of Boston. She had gone down three weeks in a torrential typhoon. Farnsworth had been a midshipsman on his virgin cruise. He said several of his companions had survived but one by one they fell mad in the water and abandoned the raft for some delusional vision. Twice, he said, he had saved Tommy but the third time he lost him. This caused him a great weary sob.
"Okay, now that's enough- Dr Johnson, take Mr. Farnsworth below and see to him. Once he has rested and recovered we can hear more."
The Marie Souter was known to the captain. The ship was a notorious scow, ever in need of servicing and in constant disrepair due to the greed of it's company's owners, The Lance Group. She took only the worst, sailors who could not get work on other ships because of their previous failures. That Mr Farnsowrth said it was his virgin cruise, was to his advantage.