Angel Island

After a week or two, the first fine careless rapture of their escape

from death disappeared. The lure of loot evaporated. They did not stop

their work on "the ship-duffle," but it became aimless and undirected.

Their trips into the island seemed a little purposeless. Frank Merrill

had to scourge them to patrol the beach, to keep their signal sheets

flying, their signal fires burning. The effect upon their mental

condition of this loss of animus was immediate. They became perceptibly

more serious. Their first camp - it consisted only of five haphazard

piles of bedding - satisfied superficially the shiftless habits of their

womanless group; subconsciously, however, they all fell under the

depression of its discomfort and disorder. They bathed in the ocean

regularly but they did not shave. Their clothes grew ragged and torn,

and although there were scores of trunks packed with wearing apparel,

they did not bother to change them. Subconsciously they all responded to

these irregularities by a sudden change in spirit.

In the place of the gay talk-fests that filled their evenings, they

began to hold long pessimistic discussions about their future on the

island in case rescue were indefinitely delayed. Taciturn periods fell

upon them. Frank Merrill showed only a slight seriousness. Billy

Fairfax, however, wore a look permanently sobered. Pete Murphy became

subject at regular intervals to wild rhapsodical seizures when he raved,

almost in impromptu verse, about the beauty of sea and sky. These were

followed by periods of an intense, bitter, black, Celtic melancholy.

Ralph Addington degenerated into what Honey described as "the human

sourball." He spoke as seldom as possible and then only to snarl. He

showed a tendency to disobey the few orders that Frank Merrill, who

still held his position of leader, laid upon them. Once or twice he

grazed a quarrel with Merrill. Honey Smith developed an abnormality

equal to Ralph Addington's, but in the opposite direction. His spirits

never flagged; he brimmed with joy-in-life, vitality, and optimism. It

was as if he had some secret mental solace.

"Damn you and your sunny-side-up dope!" Ralph Addington growled at him

again and again. "Shut up, will you!"

One day Frank Merrill proposed a hike across the island. Billy Fairfax

who, at the head, had set a brisk pace for the file, suddenly dropped

back to the rear and accosted Honey Smith who had lagged behind. Honey

was skipping stones over the lake from a pocketful of flat pebbles.

"Say, Honey," Billy began. The other four men were far ahead, but Billy

kept his voice low. Do you remember that dream you had about the big

bird - the time we joshed you so?