Even to get into that boat was a terrible undertaking, for the smack was
showing her keel, and the wall-siders made it likely that the boat would
overbalance and fall backward like a rearing horse. Six times Ferrier
had his foot on the rail ready to make his lithe, flying bound into the
cockleshell; six times she was spun away like a foambell--returning to
crash against the side as the smack hove up high. At last the doctor
fairly fell over the rail, landed astride on the boat's gunwale, and
from thence took a roll to the bottom and lay in the swashing water.
Then delicately, cautiously, the skipper and his man picked their way
with short, catchy strokes--mere dabs at the boiling foam.

"God bless you," Tom sang out, and the big fellow was touched when he
heard the weak voices of the patients below, crying "God bless you!"
with a shrillness that pierced above the hollow rattle of the wind,
"There goes the boat up, perpendicularly as it appears. Ah! that's over
her. No; it's broken aside. What a long time she is in coming up. Here's
a cross sea! Ferrier's baling. Oh! it's too much. Oh! my poor friend!
Here's a screamer! God be praised--she's topped it! Will the smack hit
her? Go under his lee if you love me. They've got the rope now. In he
goes, smash on his face! Just like him, the idiot--Lord bless his face
and him!" Thomas hung on to the rigging and muttered thus, to his own
great easement.

When Ferrier got up, he said, "Skipper, only once more of that for me.
Once more, and no more after. If a raw hand had been there we should
never have lived. Thank goodness you came! You deserve the Albert medal,
and you shall have it too, if I can do anything."

The new patient was gasping heavily, and the whites of his eyes showed.
The skipper explained: "You see, sir, he's got cold through with
snow-water, and he sleeps in his wet clothes same as most of us; but
he's not a strong chap, and it's settled him. He's as hard as a stone
all round, and sometimes he's hot and sometimes he's cold."

"Has he sweated?"

"No, sir; and he's got cramps that double him up."

"Has he spoken lately?"

"Not a word."

"Well now, give me every blanket you can rake up or steal, or get
anyhow."

When the blankets were brought, Ferrier said, "Now I'm going to make him
sweat violently, and then I shall trap him up, as some of you say, and
you must do your best to keep him warm afterwards, or else you may lose
him. When he has perspired