“I mean in the fo’castle or below it, rather than on deck.”
“He was made beastly drunk.”
I found that Summers was peering at me closely.
“And that was all?”
“All?”
“I see. Well, sir, I shall report back to the captain.”
“Tell him I shall continue to consider how we may devise some method of bringing the wretched fellow to his senses.”
“I will do so; and must thank you for your assistance.”
Summers left and I was alone with my thoughts and this journal. It was so strange to think that a young fellow not much above my years or Deverel’s and certainly not as old as Cumbershum should have so strong an instinct for self-destruction! Why, Aristotle or no, half an hour of La Brocklebank—even Prettiman and Miss Granham—and there, thought I, is a situation I must get acquainted with for a number of reasons, the least of them entertainment: and then—
What do you suppose was the thought that came into my mind? It was of the pile of manuscript that had lain on the flap of Colley’s table! I had not noticed the flap or the papers when Summers and I entered the cabin; but now, by the incomprehensible faculties of the human mind I, as it were, entered the cabin again and surveying the scene I had just left, I saw in my mind that the writing-flap was empty! There is a subject for a savant’s investigation! How can a man’s mind go back and see what he saw not? But so it was.
Well. Captain Anderson had co-opted me. He should find out, I thought, what sort of overseer he had brought into the business!
I went quickly to Colley’s cabin. He lay as before. Only when I was inside the hutch did I return to a kind at least of apprehension. I intended the man nothing but good and I was acting on the captain’s behalf; yet there was in my mind an unease. I felt it as the effect of the captain’s rule. A tyrant turns the slightest departure from his will into a crime; and I was at the least contemplating bringing him to book for his mistreatment of Mr Colley. I looked quickly round the cabin. The ink and pens and sander were still there, as were the shelves with their books of devotion at the foot of the bed. It seemed there was a limit to their efficacy! I leaned over the man himself.
It was then that I perceived without seeing—I knew, but had no real means of knowing—
There had been a time when he had awakened in physical anguish which had quickly passed into a mental one. He lay like that in deepening pain, deepening consciousness, widening memory, his whole being turning more and more from the world till he could desire nothing but death. Phillips could not rouse him nor even Summers. Only I—my words after all had touched something. When I left him after that first visit, glad enough to be gone, he had leapt from his bunk in some new agony! Then, in a passion of self-disgust he had swept his papers from the table. Like a child he had seized the whole and had jammed them into a convenient crack as if it would stay unsearched till doom’s day! Of course. There was, between the bunk and the side of the vessel a space, just as in my own hutch, into which a man might thrust his hand as I then did in Colley’s. They encountered paper and I drew out a crumpled mass of sheets all written, some cross-written, and all, I was certain, material evidence against our tyrant in the case of Colley versus Anderson! I put the papers quickly into the bosom of my coat, came out—unseen I pray God!—and hurried to my cabin. There I thrust the mass of papers into my own writing-case and locked it as if I were concealing the spoils of a burglary! After that I sat and began to write all this in my journal as if seeking, in a familiar action, some legal security! Is that not comic?
Wheeler came to my cabin.
“Sir, I have a message, sir. The captain requests that you give him the pleasure of your company at dinner in an hour’s time.”
“My compliments to the captain and I accept with pleasure.”
GAMMA
What a day this has been. I commenced it with some cheerfulness and I end it with—but you will wish to know all! It seems so long ago that the affair was misty and my own endeavours to pierce the mist so complacent, so self-satisfied—
Well. As Summers said, I am partly to blame. So are we all in one degree or another; but none of us, I think, in the same measure as our tyrant! Let me take you with me, my lord, step by step. I promise you—no, not entertainment but at the very least a kind of generous indignation and the exercise not of my, but your judgement.
I changed and dismissed Wheeler only to find his place taken by Summers, who looked positively elegant.
“Good God, Summers, you are also bidden to the feast?”
“I am to share that pleasure.”
“It is an innovation, for sure.”
“Oldmeadow makes a fourth.”
I took out my repeater.
“It still wants more than ten minutes. What is etiquette for such a visit on shipboard?”
“Where the captain is concerned, on the last stroke of the bell.”
“In that case I shall disappoint his expectations and arrive early. He anticipates, I believe, knowing me, that I shall arrive late.”
My entry into Captain Anderson’s stateroom was as ceremonious as an admiral could wish. The cabin, or room, rather, though not as large as the passengers’ saloon or even the saloon where the lieutenants messed, was yet of palatial dimensions when compared with our meagre individual quarters. Some of the ship’s full width was pared off on either side for the captain’s own sleeping quarters, his closet, his personal galley, and another small cabin where I suppose an admiral would have conducted the business of a fleet. As in the lieutenants’ wardroom and the passenger saloon, the rear wall, or in Tarpaulin language the after bulkhead, was one vast, leaded window by means of which something like a third of the horizon might be seen. Yet part of this window was obscured in a way that at first I could scarcely credit. Part of the obscuration was the captain, who called out as soon as I appeared in what I can only call a holiday voice.
“Come in, Mr Talbot, come in! I must apologize for not greeting you at the threshold! You have caught me in my garden.”
It was so indeed. The obscuration to the great window was a row of climbing plants, each twisting itself round a bamboo that rose from the darkness near the deck where I divined the flower pots were. Standing a little to one side I could see that Captain Anderson was serving each plant into its flower pot with water from a small watering can with a long spout. The can was the sort of flimsy trifle you might find a lady using in the orangery—not indeed, to serve the trees in their enormous vats, but some quaintness of Dame Nature’s own ingenuity. The morose captain might be thought to befit such a picture ill; but as he turned I saw to my astonishment that he was looking positively amiable, as if I were a lady come to visit him.
“I did not know that you had a private paradise, captain.”
The captain smiled! Yes, positively, he smiled!
“Do but think, Mr Talbot, this flowering plant that I am tending, still innocent and unfallen, may have been one with which Eve garlanded herself on the first day of her creation.”
“Would that not presuppose a loss of innocence, captain, precursor to the fig leaves?”
“It might be so. How acute you are, Mr Talbot.”
“We were being fanciful, were we not?”
“I was speaking my mind. The plant is called the Garland Plant. The ancients, I am told, crowned themselves with it. The flower, when it appears, is agreeably perfumed and waxen white.”
“We might be Grecians then and crown ourselves for the feast.”
“I do not think the custom suited to the English. But do you see I have three of the plants? Two of them I actually raised from seed!”
“Is that a task as difficult as your triumphant tone would imply?”
Captain Anderson laughed happily. His chin was up, his cheeks creased, twin sparks in his little eyes.
“Sir Joseph Banks said it was impossible! ‘Anderson,’ he said, ‘take cuttings man! You might as well throw the seeds overboard!’ But I have persevered a
nd in the end I had a box of them—seedlings, I mean—enough to supply a Lord Mayor’s banquet, if—to follow your fancy—they should ever require their aldermen to be garlanded. But there! It is not to be imagined. Garlands would be as out of place as in the painted hall at Greenwich. Serve Mr Talbot. What will you drink, sir? There is much to hand, though I take no more than an occasional glass myself.”
“Wine for me, sir.”
“Hawkins, the claret if you please! This geranium you see, Mr Talbot, has some disease of the leaf. I have dusted it with flowers of sulphur but to no effect. I shall lose it no doubt. But then, sir, he who gardens at sea must accustom himself to loss. On my first voyage in command I lost my whole collection.”
“Through the violence of the enemy?”
“No sir, through the uncommon nature of the weather which held us for whole weeks without either wind or rain. I could not have served water to my plants. There would have been mutiny. I see the loss of this one plant as no great matter.”
“Besides, you may exchange it for another at Sydney Cove.”
“Why must you—”
He turned away and stowed the waterpot in a box down by the plants. When he turned back I saw the creases in his cheeks again and the sparks in his eyes.
“We are a long way and a long time from our destination, Mr Talbot.”
“You speak as though you do not anticipate our arrival there with pleasure.”
The sparks and creases vanished.
“You are young, sir. You cannot understand the pleasures of, no, the necessity of solitude to some natures. I would not care if the voyage lasted for ever!”
“But surely a man is connected to the land, to society, to a family—”
“Family? Family?” said the captain with a kind of violence. “Why should a man not do without a family? What is there about a family, pray?”
“A man is not a, a garland plant, captain, to fertilize his own seed!”
There was a long pause in which Hawkins, the captain’s servant, brought us the claret. Captain Anderson made a token gesture towards his face with half a glass of wine.
“At least I may remind myself how remarkable the flora will be at the Antipodes!”
“So you may replenish your stock.”
His face was gay again.
“Many of Nature’s inventions in that region have never been brought back to Europe.”
I saw now there was a way, if not to Captain Anderson’s heart, at least to his approval. I had a sudden thought, one worthy of a romancier, that perhaps the stormy or sullen face with which he was wont to leave his paradise was that of the expelled Adam. While I was considering this and my glass of claret, Summers and Oldmeadow entered the stateroom together.
“Come in, gentlemen,” cried the captain. “What will you take, Mr Oldmeadow? As you see, Mr Talbot is content with wine—the same for you, sir?”
Oldmeadow cawed into his collar and declared he would be agreeable to a little dry sherry. Hawkins brought a broad-bottomed decanter and poured first for Summers, as knowing already what he would drink, then for Oldmeadow.
“Summers,” said the captain, “I had meant to ask you. How does your patient?”
“Still the same, sir. Mr Talbot was good enough to comply with your request. But his words had no more effect than mine.”
“It is a sad business,” said the captain. He stared directly at me. “I shall enter in the ship’s log that the patient—for such I believe we must consider him—has been visited by you, Mr Summers, and by you, Mr Talbot.”
It was now that I began to understand Captain Anderson’s purpose in getting us into his cabin and his clumsy way about the business of Colley. Instead of waiting till the wine and talk had worked on us he had introduced the subject at once and far too abruptly. It was time I thought of myself!
“You must remember, sir,” said I, “that if the wretched man is to be considered a patient, my opinion is valueless. I have no medical knowledge whatsoever. Why, you would do better to consult Mr Brocklebank!”
“Brocklebank? Who is Brocklebank?”
“The artistic gentleman with the port-wine face and female entourage. But I jested. He told me he had begun to study medicine but had given it up.”
“He has some medical experience, then?”
“No, no! I jested. The man is—what is the man, Summers? I doubt he could take a pulse!”
“Nevertheless—Brocklebank you said? Hawkins, find Mr Brocklebank and ask him to be good enough to come and see me at once.”
I saw it all, saw in the entry in the log—visited by a gentleman of some medical experience! He was crude but cunning, was the captain! He was, as Deverel would say, “keeping his yardarm free”. Observe how he is forcing me to report to your lordship in my journal that he has taken every care of the man, had him visited by his officers, by me, and by a gentleman of some medical experience!
No one said anything for a while. We three guests stared into our glasses as if rendered solemn by a reminder of the sick. But it could not have been more than two minutes before Hawkins returned to say that Mr Brocklebank would be happy to wait on the captain.
“We will sit down, then,” said the captain. “Mr Talbot on my right—Mr Oldmeadow here, sir! Summers, will you take the bottom of the table? Why, this is delightfully domestic! Have you room enough, gentlemen? Summers has plenty of course. But we must allow him free passage to the door in case one of ten thousand affairs takes him from us about the ship’s business.”
Oldmeadow remarked that the soup was excellent. Summers, who was eating his with the dexterity acquired in a dozen fo’castles, remarked that much nonsense was talked about Navy food.
“You may depend upon it,” he said, “where food has to be ordered, gathered, stored and served out by the thousands of ton there will be cause of complaint here and there. But in the main, British seamen eat better at sea than they do ashore.”
“Bravo!” I cried. “Summers, you should be on the government benches!”
“A glass of wine with you, Mr Summers,” said the captain. “What is the phrase? ‘No heel taps’? A glass with all you gentlemen! But to return—Summers, what do you say to the story of the cheese clapped on the main as a mastcapping? What of the snuff-boxes carved out of beef?”
I saw out of the corner of my eye how the captain did no more than sniff the bouquet of his wine, then set the glass down. I determined to humour him if only to see round his schemes.
“Summers, I must hear you answer the captain. What of the snuff-boxes and mastcheeses—”
“Mastcappings—”
“What of the bones we hear are served to our gallant tars with no more than a dried shred of meat adhering?”
Summers smiled.
“I fancy you will sample the cheese, sir; and I believe the captain is about to surprise you with bones.”
“Indeed I am,” said the captain. “Hawkins, have them brought in.”
“Good God,” I cried, “marrow bones!”
“Bessie, I suppose,” said Oldmeadow. “A very profitable beast.”
I bowed to the captain.
“We are overwhelmed, sir. Lucullus could do no better.”
“I am endeavouring to supply you with material for your journal, Mr Talbot.”
“I give you my word, sir, the menu shall be preserved for the remotest posterity together with a memorial of the captain’s hospitality!”
Hawkins bent to the captain.
“The gentleman is at the door, sir.”
“Brocklebank? I will take him for a moment into the office if you will excuse me, gentlemen.”
Now there occurred a scene of farce. Brocklebank had not remained at the door but was inside it and advancing. Either he had mistaken the captain’s message for such an invitation as had been issued to me, or he was tipsy, or both. Summers had pushed back his chair and stood up. As if the first lieutenant had been a footman, Brocklebank sank into it.
“Thankee, thankee
. Marrow bones! How the devil did you know, sir? I don’t doubt one of my gals told you. Confusion to the French!”
He drained Summers’s glass at a draught. He had a voice like some fruit which combines the qualities—if there be such a fruit—of peach and plum. He stuck his little finger in his ear, bored for a moment, inspected the result on the end of it while no one said anything. The servant was at a loss. Brocklebank caught a clearer sight of Summers and beamed at him.
“You too, Summers? Sit down, man!”
Captain Anderson, with what for him was rare tact, broke in.
“Yes, Summers, pull up that chair over there and dine with us.”
Summers sat at a corner of the table. He was breathing quickly as if he had run a race. I wondered whether he was thinking what Deverel thought and had confided to me in his, or perhaps I ought to say our, cups—No, Talbot, this is not a happy ship.
Oldmeadow turned to me.
“There was mention of a journal, Talbot. There is a devil of a lot of writing among you government people.”
“You have advanced me, sir. But it is true. The offices are paved with paper.”
The captain pretended to drink, then set the glass down.
“You might well think a ship is ballasted with paper. We record almost everything somewhere or another, from the midshipmen’s logs right up to the ship’s log kept by myself.”
“In my case, I find there is hardly time to record the events of a day before the next two or three are upon me.”
“How do you select?”
“Salient facts, of course—such trifles as may amuse the leisure of my godfather.”
“I hope,” said the captain heavily, “that you will record our sense of obligation to his lordship for affording us your company.”
“I shall do so.”
Hawkins filled Brocklebank’s glass. It was for the third time.
“Mr, er, Brocklebank,” said the captain, “may we profit from your medical experience?”
“My what, sir?”
“Talbot—Mr Talbot here,” said the captain in a vexed voice, “Mr Talbot—”
“What the devil is wrong with him? Good God! I assure you that Zenobia, dear, warm-hearted gal—”
Rites of Passage Page 13