“Which,” he added darkly, “is just as well, Mr Talbot sir, just as well!”
“Take me with you, sir.”
Mr Cumbershum waited until the tilted servant had supplied us again. Then he glanced through the door at the empty and streaming lobby.
“God knows what would happen to her Mr Talbot if we was to fire the few great guns left in her.”
“The devil is in it then!”
“I beg you will not repeat my opinion to the common sort of passenger. We must not alarm them. I have said more than I should.”
“I was prepared with some philosophy to risk the violence of the enemy; but that a spirited defence on our part should do no more than increase our danger is, is—”
“It is war, Mr Talbot; and peace or war, a ship is always in danger. The only other vessel of our rate to undertake this enormous voyage, a converted warship I mean, converted so to speak to general purposes—she was named the Guardian, I think—yes, the Guardian, did not complete the journey. But now I remember she ran on an iceberg in the Southern Ocean, so her rate and age was not material.”
I got my breath again. I detected through the impassivity of the man’s exterior a determination to roast me, precisely because I had made the importance of my position clear to him. I laughed good-humouredly and turned the thing off. I thought it a moment to try my prentice hand at the flattery which your lordship recommended to me as a possible passe-partout.
“With such devoted and skilful officers as we are provided with, sir, I am sure we need fear nothing.”
Cumbershum stared at me as if he suspected my words of some hidden and perhaps sarcastic meaning.
“Devoted, sir? Devoted?”
It was time to “go about,” as we nautical fellows say.
“Do you see this left hand of mine, sir? Yon door did it. See how scraped and bruised the palm is, you would call it my larboard hand I believe. I have a bruise on the larboard hand! Is that not perfectly nautical? But I shall follow your first advice. I shall take some food first with a glass of brandy, then turn in to keep my limbs entire. You will drink with me, sir?”
Cumbershum shook his head.
“I go on watch,” he said. “But do you settle your stomach. However, there is one more thing. Have a care I beg you of Wheeler’s paregoric. It is the very strongest stuff, and as the voyage goes on the price will increase out of all reason. Steward—what’s your name—Bates! A glass of brandy for Mr Talbot!”
He left me then with as courteous an inclination of the head as you would expect from a man leaning like the pitch of a roof. It was a sight to make one bosky out of hand. Indeed, the warming properties of strong drink give it a more seductive appeal at sea than it ever has ashore, I think. So I determined with that glass to regulate my use of it. I turned warily in my fastened seat and inspected the world of furious water that stretched and slanted beyond our stern window. I must own that it afforded me the scantiest consolation; the more so as I reflected that in the happiest outcome of our voyage there was not a single billow, wave, swell, comber that I shall cross in one direction without having, in a few years time, to cross it in the other! I sat for a great while eyeing my brandy, staring into its aromatic and tiny pool of liquid. I found little comfort in sight at that time except the evident fact that our other passengers were even more lethargic than I was. The thought at once determined me to eat. I got down some nearly fresh bread and a little mild cheese. On top of this I swallowed my brandy and gave my stomach a dare to misbehave; and so frightened it with the threat of an addiction to small ale, thence to brandy, then to Wheeler’s paregoric and after that to the ultimate destructiveness of an habitual recourse, Lord help us, to laudanum that the poor, misused organ lay as quiet as a mouse that hears a kitchen-maid rattle the fire in the morning! I turned in and got my head down and turned out and ate; then toiled at these very pages by the light of my candle—giving your lordship, I doubt it not, a queasy piece of “living through” me for which I am as heartily sorry as yourself could be! I believe the whole ship, from the farm animals up or down to your humble servant, is nauseated to one degree or another—always excepting of course the leaning and streaming tarpaulins.
(4)
And how is your lordship today? In the best of health and spirits, I trust, as I am! There is such a crowd of events at the back of my mind, tongue, pen, what you will, that my greatest difficulty is to know how to get them on the paper! In brief, all things about our wooden world have altered for the better. I do not mean that I have got my sea legs; for even now that I understand the physical laws of our motion they continue to exhaust me! But the motion itself is easier. It was some time in the hours of darkness that I woke—a shouted order perhaps—and feeling if anything even more stretched on the rack of our lumbering, bullying progress. For days, as I lay, there had come at irregular intervals a kind of impediment from our watery shoulderings that I cannot describe except to say it was as if our carriage wheels had caught for a moment on the drag, then released themselves. It was a movement that as I lay in my trough, my bunk, my feet to our stern, my head to our bows—a movement that would thrust my head more firmly into the pillow, which being made of granite transmitted the impulsion throughout the remainder of my person.
Even though I now understood the cause, the repetition was unutterably wearisome. But as I awoke there were loud movements on deck, the thundering of many feet, then shouted orders prolonged into what one might suppose to be the vociferations of the damned. I had not known (even when crossing the Channel) what an aria can be made of the simple injunction, “Ease the sheets!” then, “Let go and haul!” Precisely over my head, a voice—Cumbershum’s perhaps—roared, “Light to!” and there was even more commotion. The groaning of the yards would have made me grind my teeth in sympathy had I had the strength; but then, oh then! In our passage to date there has been no circumstance of like enjoyment, bliss! The movement of my body, of the bunk, of the whole ship changed in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye as if—but I do not need to elaborate the allusion. I knew directly what had brought the miracle about. We had altered course more towards the south and in Tarpaulin language—which I confess I speak with increasing pleasure—we had brought the wind from forrard of the starboard beam to large on the starboard quarter! Our motion, ample as ever, was and is more yielding, more feminine and suitable to the sex of our conveyance. I fell healthily asleep at once.
When I awoke there was no such folly as bounding out of my bunk or singing, but I did shout for Wheeler with a more cheerful noise than I had uttered, I believe, since the day when I was first acquainted with the splendid nature of my colonial employment—
But come! I cannot give, nor would you wish or expect, a moment by moment description of my journey! I begin to understand the limitations of such a journal as I have time to keep. I no longer credit Mistress Pamela’s pietistic accounts of every shift in her calculated resistance to the advances of her master! I will get myself up, relieved, shaved, breakfasted in a single sentence. Another shall see me on deck in my oilskin suit. Nor was I alone. For though the weather was in no way improved, we had it at our backs, or shoulders rather, and could stand comfortably in the shelter of our wall, that is, those bulkheads rising to the afterdeck and quarterdeck. I was reminded of convalescents at a spa, all up and about but wary in their new ability to walk or stagger.
Good God! Look at the time! If I am not more able to choose what I say I shall find myself describing the day before yesterday rather than writing about today for you tonight! For throughout the day I have walked, talked, eaten, drunk, explored—and here I am again, kept out of my bunk by the—I must confess—agreeable invitation of the page! I find that writing is like drinking. A man must learn to control it.
Well then. Early on, I found my oilskin suit too hot and returned to my cabin. There, since it would be in some sense an official visit, I dressed myself with care so as to make a proper impression on the captain. I was in greatcoat and bea
ver, though I took the precaution of securing this last on my head by means of a scarf passed over the crown and tied under my chin. I debated the propriety of sending Wheeler to announce me but thought this too formal in the circumstances. I pulled on my gloves, therefore, shook out my capes, glanced down at my boots and found them adequate. I went to climb the ladders—though of course they are staircases and broad at that—to the quarterdeck and poop. I passed Mr Cumbershum with an underling and gave him good day. But he ignored my greeting in a way that would have offended me had I not known from the previous day’s exchanges that his manners are uncouth and his temper uncertain. I approached the captain therefore, who was to be recognized by his elaborate if shabby uniform. He stood on the starboard side of the quarterdeck, the wind at his back where his hands were clasped, and he was staring at me, his face raised, as if my appearance was a shock.
Now I have to acquaint your lordship with an unpleasant discovery. However gallant and indeed invincible our Navy may be, however heroic her officers and devoted her people, a ship of war is an ignoble despotism! Captain Anderson’s first remark—if such a growl may be so described—and uttered at the very moment when having touched my glove to the brim of my beaver I was about to announce my name, was an unbelievably discourteous one.
“Who the devil is this, Cumbershum? Have they not read my orders?”
This remark so astonished me that I did not attend to Cumbershum’s reply, if indeed he made any. My first thought was that in the course of some quite incomprehensible misunderstanding Captain Anderson was about to strike me. At once, and in a loud voice, I made myself known. The man began to bluster and my anger would have got the better of me had I not been more and more aware of the absurdity of our position. For standing as we did, I, the captain, Cumbershum and his satellite, we all had one leg stiff as a post while the other flexed regularly as the deck moved under us. It made me laugh in what must have seemed an unmannerly fashion but the fellow deserved the rebuke even if it was accidental. It stopped his blusters and heightened his colour, but gave me the opportunity of producing your name and that of His Excellency your brother, much as one might prevent the nearer approach of a highwayman by quickly presenting a brace of pistols. Our captain squinted first—you will forgive the figure—down your lordship’s muzzle, decided you were loaded, cast a fearful eye at the ambassador in my other hand and reined back with his yellow teeth showing! I have seldom seen a face at once so daunted and so atrabilious. He is a complete argument for the sovranty of the humours. This exchange and the following served to move me into the fringes of his local despotism so that I felt much like an envoy at the Grande Porte who may regard himself as reasonably safe, if uncomfortable, while all round him heads topple. I swear Captain Anderson would have shot, hanged, keel-hauled, marooned me if prudence had not in that instant got the better of his inclination. Nevertheless, if today when the French clock in the Arras room chimed ten and our ship’s bell here was struck four times—at that time, I say, if your lordship experienced a sudden access of well-being and a warming satisfaction, I cannot swear that it may not have been some distant notion of what a silver-mounted and murdering piece of ordnance a noble name was proving to be among persons of a middle station!
I waited for a moment or two while Captain Anderson swallowed his bile. He had much regard for your lordship and would not be thought remiss in any attention to his, his—He hoped I was comfortable and had not at first known—The rule was that passengers came to the quarterdeck by invitation though of course in my case—He hoped (and this with a glare that would have frightened a wolf-hound), he hoped to see more of me. So we stood for a few more moments, one leg stiff, one leg flexing like reeds in the wind while the shadow of the driver (thank you, Falconer!) moved back and forth across us. Then, I was amused to see, he did not stand his ground, but put his hand to his hat, disguised this involuntary homage to your lordship as an attempt to adjust the set of it and turned away. He stumped off to the stern rail and stood there, his hands clasped behind his back, where they opened and shut as an unconscious betrayal of his irritation. Indeed, I was half sorry for the man, confounded as I saw him to be in the imagined security of his little kingdom. But I judged it no good time for gentling him. In politics do we not attempt to use only just sufficient force to achieve a desired end? I decided to allow the influence of this interview to work for a while and only when he has got the true state of affairs thoroughly grounded in his malevolent head shall I move towards some easiness with him. We have the whole long passage before us and it is no part of my business to make life intolerable for him, nor would I if I could. Today, as you may suppose, I am all good humour. Instead of time crawling past with a snail’s gait—now if a crab may be said to be drunk a snail may be said to have a gait—instead of time crawling, it hurries, not to say dashes past me. I cannot get one tenth of the day down! It is late; and I must continue tomorrow.
(5)
That fourth day, then—though indeed the fifth—but to continue.
After the captain had turned to the stern rail I remained for some time endeavouring to engage Mr Cumbershum in conversation. He answered me in the fewest possible words and I began to understand that he was uneasy in the captain’s presence. However, I did not wish to leave the quarterdeck as if retreating from it.
“Cumbershum,” said I, “the motion is easier. Show me more of our ship. Or if you feel it inadvisable to interrupt the management of her, lend me this young fellow to be my conductor.”
The young fellow in question, Cumbershum’s satellite, was a midshipman—not one of your ancients, stuck in his inferior position like a goat in a bush, but an example of the breed that brings a tear to every maternal eye—in a sentence, a pustular lad of fourteen or fifteen, addressed, as I soon found in pious hope, as a “Young Gentleman.” It was some time before Cumbershum answered me, the lad looking from the one to the other of us meanwhile. At last Mr Cumbershum said the lad, Mr Willis by name, might go with me. So my object was gained. I left the Sacred Precincts with dignity and indeed had despoiled it of a votary. As we descended the ladder there was a hail from Mr Cumbershum.
“Mr Willis, Mr Willis! Do not omit to invite Mr Talbot to glance at the captain’s Standing Orders. You may transmit to me any suggestions he has for their improvement.”
I laughed heartily at this sally though Willis did not seem to be amused by it. He is not merely pustular but pale, and he commonly lets his mouth hang open. He asked me what I would choose to see and I had no idea, having used him to get me off the quarterdeck suitably attended. I nodded towards the forward part of the vessel.
“Let us stroll thither,” said I, “and see how the people live.”
Willis followed me with some hesitation in the shadow of the boats on the boom, across the white line at the main mast, then between the pens where our beasts are kept. He passed me then and led the way up a ladder to the front or fo’castle, where was the capstan, the belfry, some loungers and a woman plucking a chicken. I went towards the bowsprit and looked down. I became aware of the age of this old crone of a ship for she is positively beaked in the manner of the last century and flimsy, I should judge, about the bow withal. I looked over her monstrous figurehead, emblem of her name and which our people as is their custom have turned colloquially into an obscenity with which I will not trouble your lordship. But the sight of the men down there squatting in the heads at their business was distasteful and some of them looked up at me with what seemed like impertinence. I turned away and gazed along her vast length and to the vaster expanse of dark blue ocean that surrounded us.
“Well sir,” said I to Willis, “we are certainly making way ἐπ’ εὐρέα νῶτα θαλάσσης, are we not?”
Willis replied that he did not know French.
“What do you know then, lad?”
“The rigging sir, the parts of the ship, bends and hitches, the points of the compass, the marks of the lead-line to take a bearing off a point of land or
a mark and to shoot the sun.”
“We are in good hands I see.”
“There is more than that, sir,” said he, “as for example the parts of a gun, the composition of powder to sweeten the bilge and the Articles of War.”
“You must not sweeten the Articles of War,” said I solemnly. “We must not be kinder to each other than the French are to us! It seems to me that your education is piled all on top of itself like my lady mother’s sewing closet! But what is the composition of the powder that enables you to shoot the sun and should you not be careful lest you damage the source of light and put the day out?”
Willis laughed noisily.
“You are roasting me, sir,” he said. “Even a landlubber I ask your pardon knows what shooting the sun is.”
“I forgive you that ‘even’, sir! When shall I see you do so?”
“Take an observation, sir? Why, at noon, in a few minutes. There will be Mr Smiles, the sailing master, Mr Davies and Mr Taylor, the other two midshipmen sir, though Mr Davies does not really know how to do it for all that he is so old and Mr Taylor my friend, I beg you will not mention it to the Captain, has a sextant that does not work owing to his having pawned the one that his father gave him. So we have agreed to take turn with mine and give altitudes that are two minutes different.”
I put my hand to my forehead.
Rites of Passage Page 3