“Charles!”
He positively shook his arm free and pointedly began to issue orders.
I made my way back, holding on to the windward rail.
My idea was good. Nelson, who was a sufferer from mal de mer, used to sleep in a cot which was slung like a hammock. The little girl should have had a hammock rigged for her, a doll-sized hammock, and she would have lain as snug as ever drunken Mr Gibbs did down in the gun-room! It might have given her the rest so necessary, allowed her to sleep perhaps and so gather a little strength. I had a sudden thought that if I approached Mr Benét—but he was now enmeshed in ropes and orders. However I did not return to my hutch as Charles had directed but waited once more by the break to see how the operation went. But it was slow. So at last I went to my hutch and found the inevitable Wheeler scrabbling round on the deck with a deckcloth and pretending to mop up the seawater which was immediately replaced by more from the lobby as he did so.
“Get out, Wheeler!”
I had forgotten my drunken agreement and the order had become habitual. Instead of obeying it he rose from his knees, floorcloth in hand, and came close to me.
He whispered. “She’s moving more, isn’t she, sir?”
“You’re out of your mind, Wheeler. Now be off with you!”
“I can’t drown, sir. Not again, I can’t.”
The man seemed calm for all the nonsense of what he spoke. I could think of nothing to say and muttered I know not what. So we stood, he continuing to stare into my face as if in longing and perhaps even in hope. But what use was “Lord Talbot”?
The ship’s bell rang and there were noises from all over the ship—shouts and the thumping of booted feet, where the watch was being changed. Wheeler turned with a deep sigh and went away. To be helpless before such an evident need; and on the other hand to have an idea of real value to which no one would listen; to find our ship not so much breaking up but decomposing; and to find men, Charles Summers, Wheeler, Mr Gibbs, seeming to change as if something of the same was operating in them—whatever I had foreseen or planned in those distant days in England when I was made acquainted with the nature of my employment seemed a childish “supposing” and was all now rendered conditional on our surmounting this present peril and was likely enough to be cancelled by it! That employment itself I now saw would be conditioned by a world at once harsher and more complicated than I had anticipated.
I remembered with a kind of chill that spread over me like a change in the weather what “frapping” was. Charles Summers proposed then actually to tie the ship together! He would use our great cables as a last resort in an attempt to prevent her timbers from falling apart! The officers had attempted to soothe me with their assurances! They had lied in what they thought was a good cause! We were in deadly peril! At last I let out my breath, mopped my forehead, then sat down at my writing-flap. After some thought, I took out this journal and leafed through it, reading here and there as if I might find in the recorded wisdom of Edmund Talbot a solution to our difficulties. Would the book one day be bound handsomely and lie on some shelf or other, my descendants’ shelves, Talbot’s Journal? But this one lacked the accidental shape of narration which Colley and fate had forced on the other volume! I had thought it might, as it were, group itself round the adventures of Jack Deverel. But at the very moment when he bid fair to occupy the centre of the stage he had escaped from it! He had exchanged clean out of this theatre and into another one where, alas, I could not follow him. Then again, this journal had been a sweet yet painful account of how young Mr Talbot had fallen in love—but the dear Object of my passion had been snatched away from me as mercilessly as you please, leaving me to dreams and Latin verses! Any furtherance of that connection, any fruition of it must look to so far in the future that I had a moment of breathless panic lest the whole connection should wear itself out and prove to be the merest flirtation in the skirts of a dinner and a ball! But as the thought came to me I dismissed it as unworthy. In the very instant of this ungenerous thought, the face and figure, the very being of that most precious Object—that Prodigy!—flashed upon the tablets of my memory and restored all to its true position. That last look she had given me and her last whispered words—oh no, she was all I had dreamed! Yet, remembering not a poetical phantasy but a real, breathing and feeling and speaking young lady, a young lady of much intelligence and esprit, I could not doubt she would undertake a course of parallel consideration as to my advisability, suitability, possibility, probability—I had a fleeting vision of myself through her eyes, now, that young man who was so plainly épris, and whom she now saw back there, left in a wallowing and dismasted vessel bound for somewhere else! It was a desolating consideration.
Besides, Lady Somerset had said the exchange of letters could be broken off at the wish of either party! No one was committed.
What had I foreseen? My position at Sydney Cove, a handsome workroom in the residency. There, I should apply that habit of study, that methodical approach which would make me master of any subject however complex and new—or at least more master than anyone else would be! Then in the social life which surrounded His Excellency I would be careless master of a subject, never letting it be known that hours of devoted work had given me such assurance! I would be a Burghley to His Excellency’s Queen Elizabeth—
(16)
It was an evident folly! I started to my feet but my hutch was not designed for a man stumping to and fro to settle the turmoil of his mind. I went as quickly and nimbly as the ship would allow to the greater space of the passenger saloon. But hardly had I got the door opened when Oldmeadow, the Army officer, coming close behind, shared it with me. He flung himself into a seat at the windward end of the main table. He was wearing civilian clothes and looked the better for it, a young man of some breeding and sense.
“Talbot, old fellow—”
But here a stormy thump of a wave and a bounce of our stern together with a more rapid roll to starboard made him thrust with both hands at the table before him.
“The devil take the sea and the Navy together!”
I, on the contrary, had to lay hold of the other end of the table and cling to it.
“They do their best, Oldmeadow!”
“Well it’s not enough, that’s what I say. If I’d known how long and hard this voyage would be I’d have thrown up my commission!”
“We have to put up with it.”
“That’s all very well, Talbot. But you know we’re sinking or going to sink or may sink—I tell you that in confidence. My men know all about it. In fact they knew all about it before I did! It’s always the way, you know.”
“What did you tell them?”
“What do you imagine? I told them they were soldiers and the ship was the business of the Navy and none of theirs.” He gave his sudden, cawing laugh, chin drawn back. “I told them if they had to drown they’d do so with leather properly pipe-clayed and muskets clean. I also ordered Corporal Jackson if he found we were sinking to get them properly fell in and standing by for further orders.”
“What good does that do?”
“Have you a better suggestion?”
“We are not supposed—Summers assures me we shall not sink.”
I was about to elaborate on this when the door opened violently as usual in lumpy weather, and portly Mr Brocklebank came through, supported on one side by Mrs Brocklebank and on the other side by Phillips. They manoeuvred him to a seat half-way between me and Oldmeadow and went away. The poor man seemed to me to have lost half his substance. His fat cheeks were now pendulous as those of a certain Royal Personage though his extreme embonpoint was no longer comparable.
“Mr Brocklebank, sir! I was told you were forced to keep your bunk! May we both congratulate you on your recovery?”
“I am not recovered, Mr Talbot. It is supposed that a little movement may improve me. I am in a sad way. But so, Mrs Brocklebank tells me, is our ship. I am summoning up what little strength I have left to be on hand when we
attempt the operation of the dragrope. The artist’s eye—”
“I admire your devotion to art, sir, but the ship is not in a bad way! I have the word of the first lieutenant! Devil take it, do you suppose I myself would be so cheerful if we was about to sink?”
I attempted a light laugh but it was so unsuccessful that both Oldmeadow and Mr Brocklebank laughed heartily which in its turn made me laugh—so there we were, the sea slanting crazily outside the stern window, glimpses of new sun sliding over the saloon at the ship’s movement, and all laughing as if the place were bedlam.
“Well,” said Oldmeadow at last, “we soldiers are fortunate, for we know what to do!”
“I tell you we are not going to sink!”
Brocklebank ignored me.
“I have given much thought to the situation, gentlemen. Huddled as I was in my bunk, passing days without event, I have had ample time to consider the future. It was a question, you see. I was able to formulate the great question.”
I glanced at Oldmeadow to see if he thought, as I did, that Mr Brocklebank was as usual showing the result of extreme and habitual potations. But Oldmeadow watched him, saying nothing. The old man went on.
“I mean, gentlemen, we know how ships are lost. They run on the rocks. There are attempts to get ashore, et cetera, et cetera. Or they are sunk in action. You will have seen a dozen pictures—the battle smoke conveniently placed, and in the foreground a smashed stump of mast with three small figures clinging to it. There is a ship’s boat making towards them to pick them up, with Sir Henry Somerset as a midshipman in the stern sheets—far in the distance through an arrangement of convenient smoke HMS Whatnot is seen to be on fire—it has all been seen, all recorded.”
“I am not sure, sir—”
“The question? It is this. How does a ship sink when it is not seen or recorded? Every year—you young gentlemen will not remember peace, but even in peacetime—ships will disappear. They do not strike on rocks or lie bilged in sand. They are not those which become hulks for prison or supply, their ribs do not decay in estuaries. They pass over a horizon and they enter a mystery, gentlemen. They become ‘overdue’. No one paints a picture of the Jean and Mary alone in the sea, disappearing in the sea, swallowed—”
“Devil take it, Brocklebank, I said the first lieutenant—”
“Somewhere in a circle of sea not to be distinguished from any other part they come to their end—”
“Look, man, they may be taken aback as we were, overset, but not lose their topmasts and therefore sink with a gurgle, I suppose—oh, with babbling prayers and curses, shrieks and screams, shouts for help where there is none—”
“But you see, Mr Talbot, the weather may be fair, the water stealthy. It creeps on them, over them. They pump until they are exhausted and the water wins. They say the water will always win.”
I reeled because I had stood up.
“Once and for all, Mr Brocklebank, we are not going to sink! You must not speak so, and if you cannot think of a way to paint the event, well I am sorry but to tell you the truth not very—”
“You mistake me, sir. I am not thinking of paint. Oh yes, there is a great, terrible picture to be painted by someone of the ship foundering somewhere, anywhere, lost with all hands, overdue, the sea and the sky and the ship—but not I, sir. Besides, what client would ask me for such a canvas? How would such an engraving sell? No, sir. It is a question not of paint but of conduct.”
Oldmeadow cawed again.
“By Jove, Talbot, he’s put his finger on it!”
“Mr Oldmeadow understands. My meditation has been long. How does a man drown when he sees it coming? It is a question of dignity, Mr Talbot. I must have my dignity. How must I drown? Oblige me, Mr Talbot, by calling your servant.”
“Wheeler! Wheeler, I say! Damn it, Wheeler, why aren’t you—ah, there you are!”
“I beg pardon, sir? You called for me.”
Brocklebank answered.
“We are interested, you see, Wheeler. You’re about the only man alive who has had what must have been a deuced unpleasant experience. You’d oblige us by describing—”
I interrupted him.
“Brocklebank, you can’t! I don’t believe the man’s recovered, if he ever will!”
Wheeler was looking at each of us in turn.
“No no, Wheeler! Mr Brocklebank had not thought—I am sure he spoke in jest!”
A goose walked over Oldmeadow’s grave.
“God, Talbot! It would be like asking some poor devil what happened after he was turned off!”
A strong interior convulsion seemed to shake Wheeler from head to foot.
“Describe?”
Brocklebank waved his hand expansively.
“No matter, my man. I am in a minority.”
Wheeler looked at me.
“That will be all, sir?”
“I—regret this. Yes. That will be all, thank you.”
Wheeler bowed in a way I had never seen before. He went away.
I turned to Brocklebank.
“I am sorry to have interrupted you, sir, but really!”
“I am still at a loss to understand you, Mr Talbot. We had what might well be a unique opportunity to understand life—and what is even more important, understand death!”
I stood up.
“I believe, Mr Brocklebank, not being a devotee of the muse, as you are, that I am quite content to wait on the event.”
I went away to find Wheeler and give him the douceur which I thought the artist’s enquiry warranted.
But Wheeler was not in the lobby nor in my hutch. I stood there, looking down at this very book where it lay open on the writing-flap. The truth is Wheeler had frightened me into a cold perspiration. Whether it was my recent foray into the realms of poetry or his strong gaze at something which existed for him alone—but it might not be his alone! I might conceivably share it with him! Images of the latter end stormed through my mind. Mutiny—a fight for the last few places in the boats, Mr Jones’s bodyguards clubbing down the opposition as his majesty moved calmly towards his private insurance!
These images evidently worked on me more strongly than I supposed, for I came to in the lobby. I was holding on to the rail which was placed alongside my door and I had not put on oilskins. I cannot remember opening the door. I simply found myself where I was. My heart was beating as if I had run a race.
Mr Jones himself stood in the doorway which gives on to the waist. He wore oilskins though for once they did not seem necessary. A dense blue sea surrounded us with white horses galloping across our course.
“Well, Mr Jones, have they taken any weed off yet?”
“I believe so, Mr Talbot. Some have averred they saw it go, but I cannot say I did so myself.”
“I saw some weed in our wake the other day. I suppose that was owing to Mr Benét having ‘cleaned the garboard strakes in the shadow of the keel’.”
“That is far too nautical for a simple shopkeeper, sir.”
“I mean his operations with the dragrope were unexpectedly successful.”
“I must approve his care of my investments.”
“You own the ship as well as everything else?”
I did not attempt to keep the irritation and dislike out of my voice. But the purser continued, placidly enough.
“No, no. That remains to the Crown. But there is a matter of certain goods of mine which are stowed in the hold and will spoil if the water gains on us.”
“The first lieutenant—”
“Assured you that the water was not gaining. Yes, I know. But in my important and shopkeeperly way I have wondered whether the weed which Mr Benét is so anxious to scrape off the ship’s hull may not in fact be keeping the water out?”
“Mr Benét—”
“He is a persuasive young gentleman. I believe, sir, that he could sell anything, did he put his mind to it. Even damaged goods.”
“They will have considered what the effect of removing the weed wil
l be.”
“I observe that the first lieutenant is co-operating in the business under protest.”
“Yes. But then he is—”
I did not like to say the word. It would seem to credit Charles Summers with an almost feminine weakness. The purser turned his head on his thick neck and looked me in the eye. He spoke the words softly.
“He is?”
I said nothing. “Jealous” is a dangerous word. He returned to watching the fo’castle. I stood, not holding on now but with feet wide apart, for Mr Benét’s change of course had had an evening effect on our movements. Together then, standing just beyond the opening to the waist, we watched the operation. The groups on either side of the ship were moving rhythmically and alternately. Then as we watched, at a shouted order both groups stood easy, the lanyards slack in their hands. I saw what the matter was. Since our rigging came down to the sides of the vessel there would come point after point at which the dragrope would have to be passed “outboard” and brought in again before the operation could continue. Such a pause the men were now enjoying and one unexpectedly prolonged, for the ship’s bell rang again and there came a pipe and the cry of “Up spirits!” It was, I thought, another example of the extraordinary ossification of Noah’s Service that the vital operation which might increase our speed now had to be set on one side while the crew tossed down what Colley had called “the flaming ichor!” The groups were streaming down from the fo’castle, leaving the officers, Cumbershum, Benét, Summers waiting, doubtless impatiently, by the abandoned ropes. What had the carpenter said all those weeks ago when I had first heard the word “dragrope”? They didn’t think they’d careen her what with one thing and another so they took what weed they could off her bottom with the dragrope—and Mr Askew, the gunner—If they took the weed off her they might take the bottom with it.
“It is an operation for harbour.”
I was a little confused to find I had spoken aloud.
“It is not a case in which they can afford to make a mistake, Mr Talbot.”
To the Ends of the Earth Page 41