The Point of It
I
“I don’t see the point of it,” said Micky, through much imbecile laughter.
Harold went on rowing. They had spent too long on the sand-dunes, and now the tide was running out of the estuary strongly. The sun was setting, the fields on the opposite bank shone bright, and the farmhouse where they were stopping glowed from its upper windows as though filled to the brim with fire.
“We’re going to be carried out to sea,” Micky continued. “You’ll never win unless you bust yourself a bit, and you a poor invalid, too. I back the sea.”
They were reaching the central channel, the backbone, as it were, of the retreating waters. Once past it, the force of the tide would slacken, and they would have easy going until they beached under the farm. It was a glorious evening. It had been a most glorious day. They had rowed out to the dunes at the slack, bathed, raced, eaten, slept, bathed and raced and eaten again. Micky was in roaring spirits. God had never thwarted him hitherto, and he could not suppose that they would really be made late for supper by an ebbing tide. When they came to the channel, and the boat, which had been slowly edging upstream, hung motionless among the moving waters, he lost all semblance of sanity, and shouted:
“It may be that the gulfs will wash us down,
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.”
Harold, who did not care for poetry, only shouted. His spirits also were roaring, and he neither looked nor felt a poor invalid. Science had talked to him seriously of late, shaking her head at his sunburnt body. What should Science know? She had sent him down to the sea to recruit, and Micky to see that he did not tire himself. Micky had been a nuisance at first, but common sense had prevailed, as it always does among the young. A fortnight ago, he would not let the patient handle an oar. Now he bid him “bust” himself, and Harold took him at his word and did so. He made himself all will and muscle. He began not to know where he was. The thrill of the stretcher against his feet, and of the tide up his arms, merged with his friend’s voice towards one nameless sensation; he was approaching the mystic state that is the athlete’s true though unacknowledged goal: he was beginning to be.
Micky chanted, “One, two—one, two,” and tried to help by twitching the rudder. But Micky had imagination. He looked at the flaming windows and fancied that the farm was a star and the boat its attendant satellite. Then the tide was the rushing ether stream of the universe, the interstellar surge that beats forever. How jolly! He did not formulate his joys, after the weary fashion of older people. He was far too happy to be thankful. “Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth,” are the words of one who has left his youth behind, and all that Micky sang was “One, two.”
Harold laughed without hearing. Sweat poured off his forehead. He put on a spurt, as did the tide.
“Wish the doctor could see you,” cried Micky.
No answer. Setting his teeth, he went berserk. His ancestors called to him that it was better to die than to be beaten by the sea. He rowed with gasps and angry little cries, while the voice of the helmsman lashed him to fury.
“That’s right—one, two—plug it in harder. … Oh, I say, this is a bit stiff, though. Let’s give it